Origins and early development of human body knowledge.

PubMed

Slaughter, Virginia; Heron, Michelle

2004-01-01

As a knowable object, the human body is highly complex. Evidence from several converging lines of research, including psychological studies, neuroimaging and clinical neuropsychology, indicates that human body knowledge is widely distributed in the adult brain, and is instantiated in at least three partially independent levels of representation. Sensorimotor body knowledge is responsible for on-line control and movement of one's own body and may also contribute to the perception of others' moving bodies; visuo-spatial body knowledge specifies detailed structural descriptions of the spatial attributes of the human body; and lexical-semantic body knowledge contains language-based knowledge about the human body. In the first chapter of this Monograph, we outline the evidence for these three hypothesized levels of human body knowledge, then review relevant literature on infants' and young children's human body knowledge in terms of the three-level framework. In Chapters II and III, we report two complimentary series of studies that specifically investigate the emergence of visuo-spatial body knowledge in infancy. Our technique is to compare infants'responses to typical and scrambled human bodies, in order to evaluate when and how infants acquire knowledge about the canonical spatial layout of the human body. Data from a series of visual habituation studies indicate that infants first discriminate scrambled from typical human body picture sat 15 to 18 months of age. Data from object examination studies similarly indicate that infants are sensitive to violations of three-dimensional human body stimuli starting at 15-18 months of age. The overall pattern of data supports several conclusions about the early development of human body knowledge: (a) detailed visuo-spatial knowledge about the human body is first evident in the second year of life, (b) visuo-spatial knowledge of human faces and human bodies are at least partially independent in infancy and (c) infants' initial visuo-spatial human body representations appear to be highly schematic, becoming more detailed and specific with development. In the final chapter, we explore these conclusions and discuss how levels of body knowledge may interact in early development.

Tensor body: real-time reconstruction of the human body and avatar synthesis from RGB-D.

PubMed

Barmpoutis, Angelos

2013-10-01

Real-time 3-D reconstruction of the human body has many applications in anthropometry, telecommunications, gaming, fashion, and other areas of human-computer interaction. In this paper, a novel framework is presented for reconstructing the 3-D model of the human body from a sequence of RGB-D frames. The reconstruction is performed in real time while the human subject moves arbitrarily in front of the camera. The method employs a novel parameterization of cylindrical-type objects using Cartesian tensor and b-spline bases along the radial and longitudinal dimension respectively. The proposed model, dubbed tensor body, is fitted to the input data using a multistep framework that involves segmentation of the different body regions, robust filtering of the data via a dynamic histogram, and energy-based optimization with positive-definite constraints. A Riemannian metric on the space of positive-definite tensor splines is analytically defined and employed in this framework. The efficacy of the presented methods is demonstrated in several real-data experiments using the Microsoft Kinect sensor.

Optimization of wearable microwave antenna with simplified electromagnetic model of the human body

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Januszkiewicz, Łukasz; Barba, Paolo Di; Hausman, Sławomir

2017-12-01

In this paper the problem of optimization design of a microwave wearable antenna is investigated. Reference is made to a specific antenna design that is a wideband Vee antenna the geometry of which is characterized by 6 parameters. These parameters were automatically adjusted with an evolution strategy based algorithm EStra to obtain the impedance matching of the antenna located in the proximity of the human body. The antenna was designed to operate in the ISM (industrial, scientific, medical) band which covers the frequency range of 2.4 GHz up to 2.5 GHz. The optimization procedure used the finite-difference time-domain method based full-wave simulator with a simplified human body model. In the optimization procedure small movements of antenna towards or away of the human body that are likely to happen during real use were considered. The stability of the antenna parameters irrespective of the movements of the user's body is an important factor in wearable antenna design. The optimization procedure allowed obtaining good impedance matching for a given range of antenna distances with respect to the human body.

Image based Monte Carlo Modeling for Computational Phantom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cheng, Mengyun; Wang, Wen; Zhao, Kai; Fan, Yanchang; Long, Pengcheng; Wu, Yican

2014-06-01

The evaluation on the effects of ionizing radiation and the risk of radiation exposure on human body has been becoming one of the most important issues for radiation protection and radiotherapy fields, which is helpful to avoid unnecessary radiation and decrease harm to human body. In order to accurately evaluate the dose on human body, it is necessary to construct more realistic computational phantom. However, manual description and verfication of the models for Monte carlo(MC)simulation are very tedious, error-prone and time-consuming. In addiation, it is difficult to locate and fix the geometry error, and difficult to describe material information and assign it to cells. MCAM (CAD/Image-based Automatic Modeling Program for Neutronics and Radiation Transport Simulation) was developed as an interface program to achieve both CAD- and image-based automatic modeling by FDS Team (Advanced Nuclear Energy Research Team, http://www.fds.org.cn). The advanced version (Version 6) of MCAM can achieve automatic conversion from CT/segmented sectioned images to computational phantoms such as MCNP models. Imaged-based automatic modeling program(MCAM6.0) has been tested by several medical images and sectioned images. And it has been applied in the construction of Rad-HUMAN. Following manual segmentation and 3D reconstruction, a whole-body computational phantom of Chinese adult female called Rad-HUMAN was created by using MCAM6.0 from sectioned images of a Chinese visible human dataset. Rad-HUMAN contains 46 organs/tissues, which faithfully represented the average anatomical characteristics of the Chinese female. The dose conversion coefficients(Dt/Ka) from kerma free-in-air to absorbed dose of Rad-HUMAN were calculated. Rad-HUMAN can be applied to predict and evaluate dose distributions in the Treatment Plan System (TPS), as well as radiation exposure for human body in radiation protection.

Position Estimation Method of Medical Implanted Devices Using Estimation of Propagation Velocity inside Human Body

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kawasaki, Makoto; Kohno, Ryuji

Wireless communication devices in the field of medical implant, such as cardiac pacemakers and capsule endoscopes, have been studied and developed to improve healthcare systems. Especially it is very important to know the range and position of each device because it will contribute to an optimization of the transmission power. We adopt the time-based approach of position estimation using ultra wideband signals. However, the propagation velocity inside the human body differs in each tissue and each frequency. Furthermore, the human body is formed of various tissues with complex structures. For this reason, propagation velocity is different at a different point inside human body and the received signal so distorted through the channel inside human body. In this paper, we apply an adaptive template synthesis method in multipath channel for calculate the propagation time accurately based on the output of the correlator between the transmitter and the receiver. Furthermore, we propose a position estimation method using an estimation of the propagation velocity inside the human body. In addition, we show by computer simulation that the proposal method can perform accurate positioning with a size of medical implanted devices such as a medicine capsule.

Person Recognition System Based on a Combination of Body Images from Visible Light and Thermal Cameras

PubMed Central

Nguyen, Dat Tien; Hong, Hyung Gil; Kim, Ki Wan; Park, Kang Ryoung

2017-01-01

The human body contains identity information that can be used for the person recognition (verification/recognition) problem. In this paper, we propose a person recognition method using the information extracted from body images. Our research is novel in the following three ways compared to previous studies. First, we use the images of human body for recognizing individuals. To overcome the limitations of previous studies on body-based person recognition that use only visible light images for recognition, we use human body images captured by two different kinds of camera, including a visible light camera and a thermal camera. The use of two different kinds of body image helps us to reduce the effects of noise, background, and variation in the appearance of a human body. Second, we apply a state-of-the art method, called convolutional neural network (CNN) among various available methods, for image features extraction in order to overcome the limitations of traditional hand-designed image feature extraction methods. Finally, with the extracted image features from body images, the recognition task is performed by measuring the distance between the input and enrolled samples. The experimental results show that the proposed method is efficient for enhancing recognition accuracy compared to systems that use only visible light or thermal images of the human body. PMID:28300783

Human Body 3D Posture Estimation Using Significant Points and Two Cameras

PubMed Central

Juang, Chia-Feng; Chen, Teng-Chang; Du, Wei-Chin

2014-01-01

This paper proposes a three-dimensional (3D) human posture estimation system that locates 3D significant body points based on 2D body contours extracted from two cameras without using any depth sensors. The 3D significant body points that are located by this system include the head, the center of the body, the tips of the feet, the tips of the hands, the elbows, and the knees. First, a linear support vector machine- (SVM-) based segmentation method is proposed to distinguish the human body from the background in red, green, and blue (RGB) color space. The SVM-based segmentation method uses not only normalized color differences but also included angle between pixels in the current frame and the background in order to reduce shadow influence. After segmentation, 2D significant points in each of the two extracted images are located. A significant point volume matching (SPVM) method is then proposed to reconstruct the 3D significant body point locations by using 2D posture estimation results. Experimental results show that the proposed SVM-based segmentation method shows better performance than other gray level- and RGB-based segmentation approaches. This paper also shows the effectiveness of the 3D posture estimation results in different postures. PMID:24883422

Analysis of Human Swing Movement and Transferring into Robot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shimodaira, Jun; Amaoka, Yuki; Hamatani, Shinsuke; Takeuchi, Masahiro; Hirai, Hiroaki; Miyazaki, Fumio

Based on Generalized Motor Program, we analyzed the skill of human's table-tennis movement We hypothesized that it can be divided into arm swing and translational movements by upper and lower body movements, respectively. We expressed 3D position of the racket by only one parameter resulted from the analysis using Principal Component Analysis. Body trunk position measurement attested the lower body plays the role of keeping fixed relative-position between the ball and the body trunk at any hitting time. By applying human skills in upper and lower body movements, we could make the robot properly play table-tennis with a human.

The Research of Computer Aided Farm Machinery Designing Method Based on Ergonomics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gao, Xiyin; Li, Xinling; Song, Qiang; Zheng, Ying

Along with agricultural economy development, the farm machinery product type Increases gradually, the ergonomics question is also getting more and more prominent. The widespread application of computer aided machinery design makes it possible that farm machinery design is intuitive, flexible and convenient. At present, because the developed computer aided ergonomics software has not suitable human body database, which is needed in view of farm machinery design in China, the farm machinery design have deviation in ergonomics analysis. This article puts forward that using the open database interface procedure in CATIA to establish human body database which aims at the farm machinery design, and reading the human body data to ergonomics module of CATIA can product practical application virtual body, using human posture analysis and human activity analysis module to analysis the ergonomics in farm machinery, thus computer aided farm machinery designing method based on engineering can be realized.

Modeling the relationship between body weight and energy intake: A molecular diffusion-based approach

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Body weight is at least partly controlled by the choices made by a human in response to external stimuli. Changes in body weight are mainly caused by energy intake. By analyzing the mechanisms involved in food intake, we considered that molecular diffusion plays an important role in body weight changes. We propose a model based on Fick's second law of diffusion to simulate the relationship between energy intake and body weight. Results This model was applied to food intake and body weight data recorded in humans; the model showed a good fit to the experimental data. This model was also effective in predicting future body weight. Conclusions In conclusion, this model based on molecular diffusion provides a new insight into the body weight mechanisms. Reviewers This article was reviewed by Dr. Cabral Balreira (nominated by Dr. Peter Olofsson), Prof. Yang Kuang and Dr. Chao Chen. PMID:22742862

Gender recognition from unconstrained and articulated human body.

PubMed

Wu, Qin; Guo, Guodong

2014-01-01

Gender recognition has many useful applications, ranging from business intelligence to image search and social activity analysis. Traditional research on gender recognition focuses on face images in a constrained environment. This paper proposes a method for gender recognition in articulated human body images acquired from an unconstrained environment in the real world. A systematic study of some critical issues in body-based gender recognition, such as which body parts are informative, how many body parts are needed to combine together, and what representations are good for articulated body-based gender recognition, is also presented. This paper also pursues data fusion schemes and efficient feature dimensionality reduction based on the partial least squares estimation. Extensive experiments are performed on two unconstrained databases which have not been explored before for gender recognition.

Gender Recognition from Unconstrained and Articulated Human Body

PubMed Central

Wu, Qin; Guo, Guodong

2014-01-01

Gender recognition has many useful applications, ranging from business intelligence to image search and social activity analysis. Traditional research on gender recognition focuses on face images in a constrained environment. This paper proposes a method for gender recognition in articulated human body images acquired from an unconstrained environment in the real world. A systematic study of some critical issues in body-based gender recognition, such as which body parts are informative, how many body parts are needed to combine together, and what representations are good for articulated body-based gender recognition, is also presented. This paper also pursues data fusion schemes and efficient feature dimensionality reduction based on the partial least squares estimation. Extensive experiments are performed on two unconstrained databases which have not been explored before for gender recognition. PMID:24977203

An analysis of the Petri net based model of the human body iron homeostasis process.

PubMed

Sackmann, Andrea; Formanowicz, Dorota; Formanowicz, Piotr; Koch, Ina; Blazewicz, Jacek

2007-02-01

In the paper a Petri net based model of the human body iron homeostasis is presented and analyzed. The body iron homeostasis is an important but not fully understood complex process. The modeling of the process presented in the paper is expressed in the language of Petri net theory. An application of this theory to the description of biological processes allows for very precise analysis of the resulting models. Here, such an analysis of the body iron homeostasis model from a mathematical point of view is given.

Multilayer limb quasi-static electromagnetic modeling with experiments for Galvanic coupling type IBC.

PubMed

Pun, S H; Gao, Y M; Mou, P A; Mak, P U; Vai, M I; Du, M

2010-01-01

Intra-body communication (IBC) is a new, emerging, short-range and human body based communication methodology. It is a technique to network various devices on human body, by utilizing the conducting properties of human tissues. For currently fast developed Body area network(BAN)/Body sensor network(BSN), IBC is believed to have advantages in power consumption, electromagnetic radiation, interference from external electromagnetic noise, security, and restriction in spectrum resource. In this article, the authors propose an improved mathematical model, which includes both electrical properties and proportion of human tissues, for IBC on a human limb. By solving the mathematical model analytically on four-layer system (skin, fat, muscle, and bone) and conducting in-vivo experiment, a comparison has been conducted.

Feature selection gait-based gender classification under different circumstances

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sabir, Azhin; Al-Jawad, Naseer; Jassim, Sabah

2014-05-01

This paper proposes a gender classification based on human gait features and investigates the problem of two variations: clothing (wearing coats) and carrying bag condition as addition to the normal gait sequence. The feature vectors in the proposed system are constructed after applying wavelet transform. Three different sets of feature are proposed in this method. First, Spatio-temporal distance that is dealing with the distance of different parts of the human body (like feet, knees, hand, Human Height and shoulder) during one gait cycle. The second and third feature sets are constructed from approximation and non-approximation coefficient of human body respectively. To extract these two sets of feature we divided the human body into two parts, upper and lower body part, based on the golden ratio proportion. In this paper, we have adopted a statistical method for constructing the feature vector from the above sets. The dimension of the constructed feature vector is reduced based on the Fisher score as a feature selection method to optimize their discriminating significance. Finally k-Nearest Neighbor is applied as a classification method. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach is providing more realistic scenario and relatively better performance compared with the existing approaches.

Performance of human body communication-based wearable ECG with capacitive coupling electrodes

PubMed Central

Sakuma, Jun; Anzai, Daisuke

2016-01-01

Wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) is attracting much attention in daily healthcare applications, and human body communication (HBC) technology provides an evident advantage in making the sensing electrodes of ECG also working for transmission through the human body. In view of actual usage in daily life, however, non-contact electrodes to the human body are desirable. In this Letter, the authors discussed the ECG circuit structure in the HBC-based wearable ECG for removing the common mode noise when employing non-contact capacitive coupling electrodes. Through the comparison of experimental results, they have shown that the authors’ proposed circuit structure with the third electrode directly connected to signal ground can provide an effect on common mode noise reduction similar to the usual drive-right-leg circuit, and a sufficiently good acquisition performance of ECG signals. PMID:27733931

Analysis of measured data of human body based on error correcting frequency

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jin, Aiyan; Peipei, Gao; Shang, Xiaomei

2014-04-01

Anthropometry is to measure all parts of human body surface, and the measured data is the basis of analysis and study of the human body, establishment and modification of garment size and formulation and implementation of online clothing store. In this paper, several groups of the measured data are gained, and analysis of data error is gotten by analyzing the error frequency and using analysis of variance method in mathematical statistics method. Determination of the measured data accuracy and the difficulty of measured parts of human body, further studies of the causes of data errors, and summarization of the key points to minimize errors possibly are also mentioned in the paper. This paper analyses the measured data based on error frequency, and in a way , it provides certain reference elements to promote the garment industry development.

Performance of human body communication-based wearable ECG with capacitive coupling electrodes.

PubMed

Sakuma, Jun; Anzai, Daisuke; Wang, Jianqing

2016-09-01

Wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) is attracting much attention in daily healthcare applications, and human body communication (HBC) technology provides an evident advantage in making the sensing electrodes of ECG also working for transmission through the human body. In view of actual usage in daily life, however, non-contact electrodes to the human body are desirable. In this Letter, the authors discussed the ECG circuit structure in the HBC-based wearable ECG for removing the common mode noise when employing non-contact capacitive coupling electrodes. Through the comparison of experimental results, they have shown that the authors' proposed circuit structure with the third electrode directly connected to signal ground can provide an effect on common mode noise reduction similar to the usual drive-right-leg circuit, and a sufficiently good acquisition performance of ECG signals.

75 FR 33515 - Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Electric-Powered Vehicles; Electrolyte Spillage and...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-06-14

..., and made a simple comparison. Based on the IEC report, the human body can withstand up to four times....\\3\\ The flow of this amount of AC through the human body may result in perception of the current and... considered to be safe) corresponds to 8 mA of DC (that is also considered to be safe for the human body).\\4...

Body mass estimates of hominin fossils and the evolution of human body size.

PubMed

Grabowski, Mark; Hatala, Kevin G; Jungers, William L; Richmond, Brian G

2015-08-01

Body size directly influences an animal's place in the natural world, including its energy requirements, home range size, relative brain size, locomotion, diet, life history, and behavior. Thus, an understanding of the biology of extinct organisms, including species in our own lineage, requires accurate estimates of body size. Since the last major review of hominin body size based on postcranial morphology over 20 years ago, new fossils have been discovered, species attributions have been clarified, and methods improved. Here, we present the most comprehensive and thoroughly vetted set of individual fossil hominin body mass predictions to date, and estimation equations based on a large (n = 220) sample of modern humans of known body masses. We also present species averages based exclusively on fossils with reliable taxonomic attributions, estimates of species averages by sex, and a metric for levels of sexual dimorphism. Finally, we identify individual traits that appear to be the most reliable for mass estimation for each fossil species, for use when only one measurement is available for a fossil. Our results show that many early hominins were generally smaller-bodied than previously thought, an outcome likely due to larger estimates in previous studies resulting from the use of large-bodied modern human reference samples. Current evidence indicates that modern human-like large size first appeared by at least 3-3.5 Ma in some Australopithecus afarensis individuals. Our results challenge an evolutionary model arguing that body size increased from Australopithecus to early Homo. Instead, we show that there is no reliable evidence that the body size of non-erectus early Homo differed from that of australopiths, and confirm that Homo erectus evolved larger average body size than earlier hominins. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A finite-element simulation of galvanic coupling intra-body communication based on the whole human body.

PubMed

Song, Yong; Zhang, Kai; Hao, Qun; Hu, Lanxin; Wang, Jingwen; Shang, Fuzhou

2012-10-09

Simulation based on the finite-element (FE) method plays an important role in the investigation of intra-body communication (IBC). In this paper, a finite-element model of the whole body model used for the IBC simulation is proposed and verified, while the FE simulation of the galvanic coupling IBC with different signal transmission paths has been achieved. Firstly, a novel finite-element method for modeling the whole human body is proposed, and a FE model of the whole human body used for IBC simulation was developed. Secondly, the simulations of the galvanic coupling IBC with the different signal transmission paths were implemented. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed method was verified by using in vivo measurements within the frequency range of 10 kHz-5 MHz, whereby some important conclusions were deduced. Our results indicate that the proposed method will offer significant advantages in the investigation of the galvanic coupling intra-body communication.

A Finite-Element Simulation of Galvanic Coupling Intra-Body Communication Based on the Whole Human Body

PubMed Central

Song, Yong; Zhang, Kai; Hao, Qun; Hu, Lanxin; Wang, Jingwen; Shang, Fuzhou

2012-01-01

Simulation based on the finite-element (FE) method plays an important role in the investigation of intra-body communication (IBC). In this paper, a finite-element model of the whole body model used for the IBC simulation is proposed and verified, while the FE simulation of the galvanic coupling IBC with different signal transmission paths has been achieved. Firstly, a novel finite-element method for modeling the whole human body is proposed, and a FE model of the whole human body used for IBC simulation was developed. Secondly, the simulations of the galvanic coupling IBC with the different signal transmission paths were implemented. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed method was verified by using in vivo measurements within the frequency range of 10 kHz–5 MHz, whereby some important conclusions were deduced. Our results indicate that the proposed method will offer significant advantages in the investigation of the galvanic coupling intra-body communication. PMID:23202010

Analysis of Timing Control Mechanism of Utterance and Body Motion Using Dialogue between Human and Communication Robot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Takasugi, Shoji; Yamamoto, Tomohito; Muto, Yumiko; Abe, Hiroyuki; Miyake, Yoshihiro

The purpose of this study is to clarify the effects of timing control of utterance and body motion in human-robot interaction. Our previous study has already revealed the correlation of timing of utterance and body motion in human-human communication. Here we proposed a timing control model based on our previous research and estimated its influence to realize human-like communication using a questionnaire method. The results showed that the difference of effectiveness between the communication with the timing control model and that without it was observed. In addition, elderly people evaluated the communication with timing control much higher than younger people. These results show not only the importance of timing control of utterance and body motion in human communication but also its effectiveness for realizing human-like human-robot interaction.

Additive effects of affective arousal and top-down attention on the event-related brain responses to human bodies.

PubMed

Hietanen, Jari K; Kirjavainen, Ilkka; Nummenmaa, Lauri

2014-12-01

The early visual event-related 'N170 response' is sensitive to human body configuration and it is enhanced to nude versus clothed bodies. We tested whether the N170 response as well as later EPN and P3/LPP responses to nude bodies reflect the effect of increased arousal elicited by these stimuli, or top-down allocation of object-based attention to the nude bodies. Participants saw pictures of clothed and nude bodies and faces. In each block, participants were asked to direct their attention towards stimuli from a specified target category while ignoring others. Object-based attention did not modulate the N170 amplitudes towards attended stimuli; instead N170 response was larger to nude bodies compared to stimuli from other categories. Top-down attention and affective arousal had additive effects on the EPN and P3/LPP responses reflecting later processing stages. We conclude that nude human bodies have a privileged status in the visual processing system due to the affective arousal they trigger. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Height and body mass influence on human body outlines: a quantitative approach using an elliptic Fourier analysis.

PubMed

Courtiol, Alexandre; Ferdy, Jean Baptiste; Godelle, Bernard; Raymond, Michel; Claude, Julien

2010-05-01

Many studies use representations of human body outlines to study how individual characteristics, such as height and body mass, affect perception of body shape. These typically involve reality-based stimuli (e.g., pictures) or manipulated stimuli (e.g., drawings). These two classes of stimuli have important drawbacks that limit result interpretations. Realistic stimuli vary in terms of traits that are correlated, which makes it impossible to assess the effect of a single trait independently. In addition, manipulated stimuli usually do not represent realistic morphologies. We describe and examine a method based on elliptic Fourier descriptors to automatically predict and represent body outlines for a given set of predicted variables (e.g., sex, height, and body mass). We first estimate whether these predictive variables are significantly related to human outlines. We find that height and body mass significantly influence body shape. Unlike height, the effect of body mass on shape differs between sexes. Then, we show that we can easily build a regression model that creates hypothetical outlines for an arbitrary set of covariates. These statistically computed outlines are quite realistic and may be used as stimuli in future studies.

Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy for assessment of human body composition.

PubMed

Kamba, M; Kimura, K; Koda, M; Ogawa, T

2001-02-01

The usefulness of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS)-based techniques for assessment of human body composition has not been established. We compared a proton MRS-based technique with the total body water (TBW) method to determine the usefulness of the former technique for assessment of human body composition. Proton magnetic resonance spectra of the chest to abdomen, abdomen to pelvis, and pelvis to thigh regions were obtained from 16 volunteers by using single, free induction decay measurement with a clinical magnetic resonance system operating at 1.5 T. The MRS-derived metabolite ratio was determined as the ratio of fat methyl and methylene proton resonance to water proton resonance. The peak areas for the chest to abdomen and the pelvis to thigh regions were normalized to an external reference (approximately 2200 g benzene) and a weighted average of the MRS-derived metabolite ratios for the 2 positions was calculated. TBW for each subject was determined by the deuterium oxide dilution technique. The MRS-derived metabolite ratios were significantly correlated with the ratio of body fat to lean body mass estimated by TBW. The MRS-derived metabolite ratio for the abdomen to pelvis region correlated best with the ratio of body fat to lean body mass on simple regression analyses (r = 0.918). The MRS-derived metabolite ratio for the abdomen to pelvis region and that for the pelvis to thigh region were selected for a multivariate regression model (R = 0.947, adjusted R(2) = 0.881). This MRS-based technique is sufficiently accurate for assessment of human body composition.

Estimation of body surface area in the musk shrew ( Suncus murinus): a small animal for testing chemotherapy-induced emesis.

PubMed

Eiseman, Julie L; Sciullo, Michael; Wang, Hong; Beumer, Jan H; Horn, Charles C

2017-10-01

Several cancer chemotherapies cause nausea and vomiting, which can be dose-limiting. Musk shrews are used as preclinical models for chemotherapy-induced emesis and for antiemetic effectiveness. Unlike rats and mice, shrews possess a vomiting reflex and demonstrate an emetic profile similar to humans, including acute and delayed phases. As with most animals, dosing of shrews is based on body weight, while translation of such doses to clinically equivalent exposure requires doses based on body surface area. In the current study body surface area in musk shrews was directly assessed to determine the Meeh constant (K m ) conversion factor (female = 9.97, male = 9.10), allowing estimation of body surface area based on body weight. These parameters can be used to determine dosing strategies for shrew studies that model human drug exposures, particularly for investigating the emetic liability of cancer chemotherapeutic agents.

Cognitive Analysis of Chinese-English Metaphors of Animal and Human Body Part Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Song, Meiying

2009-01-01

Metaphorical cognition arises from the mapping of two conceptual domains onto each other. According to the "Anthropocentrism", people tend to know the world first by learning about their bodies including Apparatuses. Based on that, people begin to know the material world, and the human body part metaphorization emerges as the times…

Accurate estimation of human body orientation from RGB-D sensors.

PubMed

Liu, Wu; Zhang, Yongdong; Tang, Sheng; Tang, Jinhui; Hong, Richang; Li, Jintao

2013-10-01

Accurate estimation of human body orientation can significantly enhance the analysis of human behavior, which is a fundamental task in the field of computer vision. However, existing orientation estimation methods cannot handle the various body poses and appearances. In this paper, we propose an innovative RGB-D-based orientation estimation method to address these challenges. By utilizing the RGB-D information, which can be real time acquired by RGB-D sensors, our method is robust to cluttered environment, illumination change and partial occlusions. Specifically, efficient static and motion cue extraction methods are proposed based on the RGB-D superpixels to reduce the noise of depth data. Since it is hard to discriminate all the 360 (°) orientation using static cues or motion cues independently, we propose to utilize a dynamic Bayesian network system (DBNS) to effectively employ the complementary nature of both static and motion cues. In order to verify our proposed method, we build a RGB-D-based human body orientation dataset that covers a wide diversity of poses and appearances. Our intensive experimental evaluations on this dataset demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method.

A functional-based segmentation of human body scans in arbitrary postures.

PubMed

Werghi, Naoufel; Xiao, Yijun; Siebert, Jan Paul

2006-02-01

This paper presents a general framework that aims to address the task of segmenting three-dimensional (3-D) scan data representing the human form into subsets which correspond to functional human body parts. Such a task is challenging due to the articulated and deformable nature of the human body. A salient feature of this framework is that it is able to cope with various body postures and is in addition robust to noise, holes, irregular sampling and rigid transformations. Although whole human body scanners are now capable of routinely capturing the shape of the whole body in machine readable format, they have not yet realized their potential to provide automatic extraction of key body measurements. Automated production of anthropometric databases is a prerequisite to satisfying the needs of certain industrial sectors (e.g., the clothing industry). This implies that in order to extract specific measurements of interest, whole body 3-D scan data must be segmented by machine into subsets corresponding to functional human body parts. However, previously reported attempts at automating the segmentation process suffer from various limitations, such as being restricted to a standard specific posture and being vulnerable to scan data artifacts. Our human body segmentation algorithm advances the state of the art to overcome the above limitations and we present experimental results obtained using both real and synthetic data that confirm the validity, effectiveness, and robustness of our approach.

Air Ambient-Operated pNIPAM-Based Flexible Actuators Stimulated by Human Body Temperature and Sunlight.

PubMed

Yamamoto, Yuki; Kanao, Kenichiro; Arie, Takayuki; Akita, Seiji; Takei, Kuniharu

2015-05-27

Harnessing a natural power source such as the human body temperature or sunlight should realize ultimate low-power devices. In particular, macroscale and flexible actuators that do not require an artificial power source have tremendous potential. Here we propose and demonstrate electrically powerless polymer-based actuators operated at ambient conditions using a packaging technique in which the stimulating power source is produced by heat from the human body or sunlight. The actuating angle, force, and reliability are discussed as functions of temperature and exposure to sunlight. Furthermore, a wearable device platform and a smart curtain actuated by the temperature of human skin and sunlight, respectively, are demonstrated as the first proof-of-concepts. These nature-powered actuators should realize a new class of ultimate low-power devices.

Thermodynamic Modeling and Analysis of Human Stress Response

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Boregowda, S. C.; Tiwari, S. N.

1999-01-01

A novel approach based on the second law of thermodynamics is developed to investigate the psychophysiology and quantify human stress level. Two types of stresses (thermal and mental) are examined. A Unified Stress Response Theory (USRT) is developed under the new proposed field of study called Engineering Psychophysiology. The USRT is used to investigate both thermal and mental stresses from a holistic (human body as a whole) and thermodynamic viewpoint. The original concepts and definitions are established as postulates which form the basis for thermodynamic approach to quantify human stress level. An Objective Thermal Stress Index (OTSI) is developed by applying the second law of thermodynamics to the human thermal system to quantify thermal stress or dis- comfort in the human body. The human thermal model based on finite element method is implemented. It is utilized as a "Computational Environmental Chamber" to conduct series of simulations to examine the human thermal stress responses under different environmental conditions. An innovative hybrid technique is developed to analyze human thermal behavior based on series of human-environment interaction simulations. Continuous monitoring of thermal stress is demonstrated with the help of OTSI. It is well established that the human thermal system obeys the second law of thermodynamics. Further, the OTSI is validated against the experimental data. Regarding mental stress, an Objective Mental Stress Index (OMSI) is developed by applying the Maxwell relations of thermodynamics to the combined thermal and cardiovascular system in the human body. The OMSI is utilized to demonstrate the technique of monitoring mental stress continuously and is validated with the help of series of experimental studies. Although the OMSI indicates the level of mental stress, it provides a strong thermodynamic and mathematical relationship between activities of thermal and cardiovascular systems of the human body.

Pulse - Accelerator Science in Medicine

Science.gov Websites

imaging the human body. Many of medicine's most powerful diagnostic tools incorporate technology that is a technique used to produce high quality images of the inside of the human body. MRI is based on new generation of high-field superconducting MRI magnets will help unlock the secrets of the human

Human body motion tracking based on quantum-inspired immune cloning algorithm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Han, Hong; Yue, Lichuan; Jiao, Licheng; Wu, Xing

2009-10-01

In a static monocular camera system, to gain a perfect 3D human body posture is a great challenge for Computer Vision technology now. This paper presented human postures recognition from video sequences using the Quantum-Inspired Immune Cloning Algorithm (QICA). The algorithm included three parts. Firstly, prior knowledge of human beings was used, the key joint points of human could be detected automatically from the human contours and skeletons which could be thinning from the contours; And due to the complexity of human movement, a forecasting mechanism of occlusion joint points was addressed to get optimum 2D key joint points of human body; And then pose estimation recovered by optimizing between the 2D projection of 3D human key joint points and 2D detection key joint points using QICA, which recovered the movement of human body perfectly, because this algorithm could acquire not only the global optimal solution, but the local optimal solution.

Is the asymmetry in young infants' categorization of humans versus nonhuman animals based on head, body, or global gestalt information?

PubMed

Quinn, Paul C

2004-02-01

Quinn and Eimas (1998) reported an asymmetry in the exclusivity of the category representations that young infants form for humans and nonhuman animals: category representations for nonhuman animal species were found to exclude humans, whereas a category representation for humans was found to include nonhuman animal species (i.e., cats, horses). The present experiment utilized the familiarization/novelty-preference procedure with 3- and 4-month-olds to determine the perceptual cues (i.e., whole stimulus, head alone, body alone) that provided the basis for this asymmetry. The data revealed the asymmetry to be observable only with the whole animal stimuli and not when infants were provided with information from just the head or the body of the exemplars. The results indicate that the incorporation of nonhuman animal species into a category representation for humans is based on holistic information.

Dynamic Human Body Modeling Using a Single RGB Camera.

PubMed

Zhu, Haiyu; Yu, Yao; Zhou, Yu; Du, Sidan

2016-03-18

In this paper, we present a novel automatic pipeline to build personalized parametric models of dynamic people using a single RGB camera. Compared to previous approaches that use monocular RGB images, our system can model a 3D human body automatically and incrementally, taking advantage of human motion. Based on coarse 2D and 3D poses estimated from image sequences, we first perform a kinematic classification of human body parts to refine the poses and obtain reconstructed body parts. Next, a personalized parametric human model is generated by driving a general template to fit the body parts and calculating the non-rigid deformation. Experimental results show that our shape estimation method achieves comparable accuracy with reconstructed models using depth cameras, yet requires neither user interaction nor any dedicated devices, leading to the feasibility of using this method on widely available smart phones.

Dynamic Human Body Modeling Using a Single RGB Camera

PubMed Central

Zhu, Haiyu; Yu, Yao; Zhou, Yu; Du, Sidan

2016-01-01

In this paper, we present a novel automatic pipeline to build personalized parametric models of dynamic people using a single RGB camera. Compared to previous approaches that use monocular RGB images, our system can model a 3D human body automatically and incrementally, taking advantage of human motion. Based on coarse 2D and 3D poses estimated from image sequences, we first perform a kinematic classification of human body parts to refine the poses and obtain reconstructed body parts. Next, a personalized parametric human model is generated by driving a general template to fit the body parts and calculating the non-rigid deformation. Experimental results show that our shape estimation method achieves comparable accuracy with reconstructed models using depth cameras, yet requires neither user interaction nor any dedicated devices, leading to the feasibility of using this method on widely available smart phones. PMID:26999159

Integration methods for thermosensitive gel systems in garments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reich, A.; Rödel, H.; Stoll, A.; Liske, A.; Zehm, D.

2017-10-01

Humans live and work under severe thermophysiological conditions, which are characterized by extreme temperatures and humidities. Furthermore, additional burdens can arise from physical activities of the human body or the work conditions (resulting in psychological stress) [1]. The thermoregulation of the human body compensates such situations and maintains the core body temperature at 37°C (98,6 °F). The currently used systems for supporting human thermoregulation, such as PCM-equipped surface structures or mobile water-based cooling units have the disadvantage that the running cooling process is neither switchable nor reversible. Another promising possibility for a personal cooling is the use of temperature-dependent superabsorbers (so-called LCST and UCST) in garments, which absorb the human sweat and transmit it to the environment by evaporation. Cooling during evaporation results in heat transfer from the human body.

Cyborg identities and contemporary techno-utopias: adaptations and transformations of the body in the age of nanotechnology.

PubMed

Maestrutti, Marina

2011-01-01

The possibility of improving the human body through a closer relationship with technology in order to overcome the human species toward new stages of evolution is a constant element of techno-utopian visions, among other transhumanism. This projection to a radical transformation of the body - and mind - as a result of technological action is based on the concepts of adaptation, or non adaptation, of a human being to a world constantly changed by technoscience. The belief is that not only the body has to change, but that identity is not a stable concept. This mobility in the relationship between body and identity is typical of the post human thought, which inherits from the informational model the conviction that the biological embodiment of human is to be regarded as an accident of history rather than as an essential condition of life. Hybridization is therefore valued by the post human thought as a condition which has "made" the human as he is today, and it appears as a fundamental topic in any discourse on nanotechnology, biotechnology and development of human-machine interfaces.

E-Activities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brewster, Joy

2001-01-01

Presents five technology-based activities to teach elementary students about the human body, including: creating a heartbeat graph; charting the benefits of exercise; playing a "sense"ational card game; reading online stories from three children living with various conditions or illnesses; and examining diagrams of the human body that have been…

The smell of age: perception and discrimination of body odors of different ages.

PubMed

Mitro, Susanna; Gordon, Amy R; Olsson, Mats J; Lundström, Johan N

2012-01-01

Our natural body odor goes through several stages of age-dependent changes in chemical composition as we grow older. Similar changes have been reported for several animal species and are thought to facilitate age discrimination of an individual based on body odors, alone. We sought to determine whether humans are able to discriminate between body odor of humans of different ages. Body odors were sampled from three distinct age groups: Young (20-30 years old), Middle-age (45-55), and Old-age (75-95) individuals. Perceptual ratings and age discrimination performance were assessed in 41 young participants. There were significant differences in ratings of both intensity and pleasantness, where body odors from the Old-age group were rated as less intense and less unpleasant than body odors originating from Young and Middle-age donors. Participants were able to discriminate between age categories, with body odor from Old-age donors mediating the effect also after removing variance explained by intensity differences. Similarly, participants were able to correctly assign age labels to body odors originating from Old-age donors but not to body odors originating from other age groups. This experiment suggests that, akin to other animals, humans are able to discriminate age based on body odor alone and that this effect is mediated mainly by body odors emitted by individuals of old age.

The Smell of Age: Perception and Discrimination of Body Odors of Different Ages

PubMed Central

Mitro, Susanna; Gordon, Amy R.; Olsson, Mats J.; Lundström, Johan N.

2012-01-01

Our natural body odor goes through several stages of age-dependent changes in chemical composition as we grow older. Similar changes have been reported for several animal species and are thought to facilitate age discrimination of an individual based on body odors, alone. We sought to determine whether humans are able to discriminate between body odor of humans of different ages. Body odors were sampled from three distinct age groups: Young (20–30 years old), Middle-age (45–55), and Old-age (75–95) individuals. Perceptual ratings and age discrimination performance were assessed in 41 young participants. There were significant differences in ratings of both intensity and pleasantness, where body odors from the Old-age group were rated as less intense and less unpleasant than body odors originating from Young and Middle-age donors. Participants were able to discriminate between age categories, with body odor from Old-age donors mediating the effect also after removing variance explained by intensity differences. Similarly, participants were able to correctly assign age labels to body odors originating from Old-age donors but not to body odors originating from other age groups. This experiment suggests that, akin to other animals, humans are able to discriminate age based on body odor alone and that this effect is mediated mainly by body odors emitted by individuals of old age. PMID:22666457

Appearance-based multimodal human tracking and identification for healthcare in the digital home.

PubMed

Yang, Mau-Tsuen; Huang, Shen-Yen

2014-08-05

There is an urgent need for intelligent home surveillance systems to provide home security, monitor health conditions, and detect emergencies of family members. One of the fundamental problems to realize the power of these intelligent services is how to detect, track, and identify people at home. Compared to RFID tags that need to be worn all the time, vision-based sensors provide a natural and nonintrusive solution. Observing that body appearance and body build, as well as face, provide valuable cues for human identification, we model and record multi-view faces, full-body colors and shapes of family members in an appearance database by using two Kinects located at a home's entrance. Then the Kinects and another set of color cameras installed in other parts of the house are used to detect, track, and identify people by matching the captured color images with the registered templates in the appearance database. People are detected and tracked by multisensor fusion (Kinects and color cameras) using a Kalman filter that can handle duplicate or partial measurements. People are identified by multimodal fusion (face, body appearance, and silhouette) using a track-based majority voting. Moreover, the appearance-based human detection, tracking, and identification modules can cooperate seamlessly and benefit from each other. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the human tracking across multiple sensors and human identification considering the information of multi-view faces, full-body clothes, and silhouettes. The proposed home surveillance system can be applied to domestic applications in digital home security and intelligent healthcare.

Appearance-Based Multimodal Human Tracking and Identification for Healthcare in the Digital Home

PubMed Central

Yang, Mau-Tsuen; Huang, Shen-Yen

2014-01-01

There is an urgent need for intelligent home surveillance systems to provide home security, monitor health conditions, and detect emergencies of family members. One of the fundamental problems to realize the power of these intelligent services is how to detect, track, and identify people at home. Compared to RFID tags that need to be worn all the time, vision-based sensors provide a natural and nonintrusive solution. Observing that body appearance and body build, as well as face, provide valuable cues for human identification, we model and record multi-view faces, full-body colors and shapes of family members in an appearance database by using two Kinects located at a home's entrance. Then the Kinects and another set of color cameras installed in other parts of the house are used to detect, track, and identify people by matching the captured color images with the registered templates in the appearance database. People are detected and tracked by multisensor fusion (Kinects and color cameras) using a Kalman filter that can handle duplicate or partial measurements. People are identified by multimodal fusion (face, body appearance, and silhouette) using a track-based majority voting. Moreover, the appearance-based human detection, tracking, and identification modules can cooperate seamlessly and benefit from each other. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the human tracking across multiple sensors and human identification considering the information of multi-view faces, full-body clothes, and silhouettes. The proposed home surveillance system can be applied to domestic applications in digital home security and intelligent healthcare. PMID:25098207

[Use of bemitil for increasing the resistance of the human body to combined effects of carbon monoxide and heating microclimate].

PubMed

Sedov, A V; Kustov, V V; Surovtsev, N A; Lukicheva, T A; Akin'shin, A V; Nazarov, L Iu; Stroganov, V P

1991-01-01

Basing on experimental data, it was established that single administration of 0.5 mg bemitil increased human resistance to carbon oxide in concentration 300 mg/m3. The use of bemitil optimized human body state in the conditions of the complex influence of carbon oxide and extreme heating microclimate.

Transient interaction model of electromagnetic field generated by lightning current pulses and human body

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Iváncsy, T.; Kiss, I.; Szücs, L.; Tamus, Z. Á.

2015-10-01

The lightning current generates time-varying magnetic field near the down- conductor and the down-conductors are mounted on the wall of the buildings where residential places might be situated. It is well known that the rapidly changing magnetic fields can generate dangerous eddy currents in the human body.The higher duration and gradient of the magnetic field can cause potentially life threatening cardiac stimulation. The coupling mechanism between the electromagnetic field and the human body is based on a well-known physical phenomena (e.g. Faradays law of induction). However, the calculation of the induced current is very complicated because the shape of the organs is complex and the determination of the material properties of living tissues is difficult, as well. Our previous study revealed that the cardiac stimulation is independent of the rising time of the lightning current and only the peak of the current counts. In this study, the authors introduce an improved model of the interaction of electromagnetic fields of lighting current near down-conductor and human body. Our previous models are based on the quasi stationer field calculations, the new improved model is a transient model. This is because the magnetic field around the down-conductor and in the human body can be determined more precisely, therefore the dangerous currents in the body can be estimated.

Wearable health monitoring using capacitive voltage-mode Human Body Communication.

PubMed

Maity, Shovan; Das, Debayan; Sen, Shreyas

2017-07-01

Rapid miniaturization and cost reduction of computing, along with the availability of wearable and implantable physiological sensors have led to the growth of human Body Area Network (BAN) formed by a network of such sensors and computing devices. One promising application of such a network is wearable health monitoring where the collected data from the sensors would be transmitted and analyzed to assess the health of a person. Typically, the devices in a BAN are connected through wireless (WBAN), which suffers from energy inefficiency due to the high-energy consumption of wireless transmission. Human Body Communication (HBC) uses the relatively low loss human body as the communication medium to connect these devices, promising order(s) of magnitude better energy-efficiency and built-in security compared to WBAN. In this paper, we demonstrate a health monitoring device and system built using Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) sensors and components, that can collect data from physiological sensors and transmit it through a) intra-body HBC to another device (hub) worn on the body or b) upload health data through HBC-based human-machine interaction to an HBC capable machine. The system design constraints and signal transfer characteristics for the implemented HBC-based wearable health monitoring system are measured and analyzed, showing reliable connectivity with >8× power savings compared to Bluetooth low-energy (BTLE).

Multidirectional four-dimensional shape measurement system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lenar, Janusz; Sitnik, Robert; Witkowski, Marcin

2012-03-01

Currently, a lot of different scanning techniques are used for 3D imaging of human body. Most of existing systems are based on static registration of internal structures using MRI or CT techniques as well as 3D scanning of outer surface of human body by laser triangulation or structured light methods. On the other hand there is an existing mature 4D method based on tracking in time the position of retro-reflective markers attached to human body. There are two main drawbacks of this solution: markers are attached to skin (no real skeleton movement is registered) and it gives (x, y, z, t) coordinates only in those points (not for the whole surface). In this paper we present a novel multidirectional structured light measurement system that is capable of measuring 3D shape of human body surface with frequency reaching 60Hz. The developed system consists of two spectrally separated and hardware-synchronized 4D measurement heads. The principle of the measurement is based on single frame analysis. Projected frame is composed from sine-modulated intensity pattern and a special stripe allowing absolute phase measurement. Several different geometrical set-ups will be proposed depending on type of movements that are to be registered.

Fiber-based generator for wearable electronics and mobile medication.

PubMed

Zhong, Junwen; Zhang, Yan; Zhong, Qize; Hu, Qiyi; Hu, Bin; Wang, Zhong Lin; Zhou, Jun

2014-06-24

Smart garments for monitoring physiological and biomechanical signals of the human body are key sensors for personalized healthcare. However, they typically require bulky battery packs or have to be plugged into an electric plug in order to operate. Thus, a smart shirt that can extract energy from human body motions to run body-worn healthcare sensors is particularly desirable. Here, we demonstrated a metal-free fiber-based generator (FBG) via a simple, cost-effective method by using commodity cotton threads, a polytetrafluoroethylene aqueous suspension, and carbon nanotubes as source materials. The FBGs can convert biomechanical motions/vibration energy into electricity utilizing the electrostatic effect with an average output power density of ∼0.1 μW/cm(2) and have been identified as an effective building element for a power shirt to trigger a wireless body temperature sensor system. Furthermore, the FBG was demonstrated as a self-powered active sensor to quantitatively detect human motion.

Real-time 3D human pose recognition from reconstructed volume via voxel classifiers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yoo, ByungIn; Choi, Changkyu; Han, Jae-Joon; Lee, Changkyo; Kim, Wonjun; Suh, Sungjoo; Park, Dusik; Kim, Junmo

2014-03-01

This paper presents a human pose recognition method which simultaneously reconstructs a human volume based on ensemble of voxel classifiers from a single depth image in real-time. The human pose recognition is a difficult task since a single depth camera can capture only visible surfaces of a human body. In order to recognize invisible (self-occluded) surfaces of a human body, the proposed algorithm employs voxel classifiers trained with multi-layered synthetic voxels. Specifically, ray-casting onto a volumetric human model generates a synthetic voxel, where voxel consists of a 3D position and ID corresponding to the body part. The synthesized volumetric data which contain both visible and invisible body voxels are utilized to train the voxel classifiers. As a result, the voxel classifiers not only identify the visible voxels but also reconstruct the 3D positions and the IDs of the invisible voxels. The experimental results show improved performance on estimating the human poses due to the capability of inferring the invisible human body voxels. It is expected that the proposed algorithm can be applied to many fields such as telepresence, gaming, virtual fitting, wellness business, and real 3D contents control on real 3D displays.

Determination of safety distance limits for a human near a cellular base station antenna, adopting the IEEE standard or ICNIRP guidelines.

PubMed

Cooper, Justin; Marx, Bernd; Buhl, Johannes; Hombach, Volker

2002-09-01

This paper investigates the minimum distance for a human body in the near field of a cellular telephone base station antenna for which there is compliance with the IEEE or ICNIRP threshold values for radio frequency electromagnetic energy absorption in the human body. First, local maximum specific absorption rates (SARs), measured and averaged over volumes equivalent to 1 and to 10 g tissue within the trunk region of a physical, liquid filled shell phantom facing and irradiated by a typical GSM 900 base station antenna, were compared to corresponding calculated SAR values. The calculation used a homogeneous Visible Human body model in front of a simulated base station antenna of the same type. Both real and simulated base station antennas operated at 935 MHz. Antenna-body distances were between 1 and 65 cm. The agreement between measurements and calculations was excellent. This gave confidence in the subsequent calculated SAR values for the heterogeneous Visible Human model, for which each tissue was assigned the currently accepted values for permittivity and conductivity at 935 MHz. Calculated SAR values within the trunk of the body were found to be about double those for the homogeneous case. When the IEEE standard and the ICNIRP guidelines are both to be complied with, the local SAR averaged over 1 g tissue was found to be the determining parameter. Emitted power values from the antenna that produced the maximum SAR value over 1 g specified in the IEEE standard at the base station are less than those needed to reach the ICNIRP threshold specified for the local SAR averaged over 10 g. For the GSM base station antenna investigated here operating at 935 MHz with 40 W emitted power, the model indicates that the human body should not be closer to the antenna than 18 cm for controlled environment exposure, or about 95 cm for uncontrolled environment exposure. These safe distance limits are for SARs averaged over 1 g tissue. The corresponding safety distance limits under the ICNIRP guidelines for SAR taken over 10 g tissue are 5 cm for occupational exposure and about 75 cm for general-public exposure. Copyright 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Biological Awareness: Statements for Self-Discovery.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Edington, D.W.; Cunningham, Lee

This guide to biological awareness through guided self-discovery is based on 51 single focus statements concerning the human body. For each statement there are explanations of the underlying physiological principles and suggested activities and discussion ideas to encourage understanding of the statement in terms of the human body's functions,…

Visuals and Visualisation of Human Body Systems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mathai, Sindhu; Ramadas, Jayashree

2009-01-01

This paper explores the role of diagrams and text in middle school students' understanding and visualisation of human body systems. We develop a common framework based on structure and function to assess students' responses across diagram and verbal modes. Visualisation is defined in terms of understanding transformations on structure and relating…

Robust automatic measurement of 3D scanned models for the human body fat estimation.

PubMed

Giachetti, Andrea; Lovato, Christian; Piscitelli, Francesco; Milanese, Chiara; Zancanaro, Carlo

2015-03-01

In this paper, we present an automatic tool for estimating geometrical parameters from 3-D human scans independent on pose and robustly against the topological noise. It is based on an automatic segmentation of body parts exploiting curve skeleton processing and ad hoc heuristics able to remove problems due to different acquisition poses and body types. The software is able to locate body trunk and limbs, detect their directions, and compute parameters like volumes, areas, girths, and lengths. Experimental results demonstrate that measurements provided by our system on 3-D body scans of normal and overweight subjects acquired in different poses are highly correlated with the body fat estimates obtained on the same subjects with dual-energy X-rays absorptiometry (DXA) scanning. In particular, maximal lengths and girths, not requiring precise localization of anatomical landmarks, demonstrate a good correlation (up to 96%) with the body fat and trunk fat. Regression models based on our automatic measurements can be used to predict body fat values reasonably well.

Human body surface area: a theoretical approach.

PubMed

Wang, Jianfeng; Hihara, Eiji

2004-04-01

Knowledge of the human body surface area has important applications in medical practice, garment design, and other engineering sizing. Therefore, it is not surprising that several expressions correlating body surface area with direct measurements of body mass and length have been reported in the literature. In the present study, based on the assumption that the exterior shape of the human body is the result of convex and concave deformations from a basic cylinder, we derive a theoretical equation minimizing body surface area (BSA) at a fixed volume (V): BSA=(9pi VL)(0.5), where L is the reference length of the body. Assuming a body density value of 1,000 kg.m(-3), the equation becomes BSA=(BM.BH/35.37)(0.5), where BSA is in square meters, BM is the body mass in kilograms, and BH is the body height in meters. BSA values calculated by means of this equation fall within +/-7% of the values obtained by means of the equations available in the literature, in the range of BSA from children to adults. It is also suggested that the above equation, which is obtained by minimizing the outer body surface at a fixed volume, implies a fundamental relation set by the geometrical constraints governing the growth and the development of the human body.

Human vocal attractiveness as signaled by body size projection.

PubMed

Xu, Yi; Lee, Albert; Wu, Wing-Li; Liu, Xuan; Birkholz, Peter

2013-01-01

Voice, as a secondary sexual characteristic, is known to affect the perceived attractiveness of human individuals. But the underlying mechanism of vocal attractiveness has remained unclear. Here, we presented human listeners with acoustically altered natural sentences and fully synthetic sentences with systematically manipulated pitch, formants and voice quality based on a principle of body size projection reported for animal calls and emotional human vocal expressions. The results show that male listeners preferred a female voice that signals a small body size, with relatively high pitch, wide formant dispersion and breathy voice, while female listeners preferred a male voice that signals a large body size with low pitch and narrow formant dispersion. Interestingly, however, male vocal attractiveness was also enhanced by breathiness, which presumably softened the aggressiveness associated with a large body size. These results, together with the additional finding that the same vocal dimensions also affect emotion judgment, indicate that humans still employ a vocal interaction strategy used in animal calls despite the development of complex language.

Evaluating morphometric body mass prediction equations with a juvenile human test sample: accuracy and applicability to small-bodied hominins.

PubMed

Walker, Christopher S; Yapuncich, Gabriel S; Sridhar, Shilpa; Cameron, Noël; Churchill, Steven E

2018-02-01

Body mass is an ecologically and biomechanically important variable in the study of hominin biology. Regression equations derived from recent human samples allow for the reasonable prediction of body mass of later, more human-like, and generally larger hominins from hip joint dimensions, but potential differences in hip biomechanics across hominin taxa render their use questionable with some earlier taxa (i.e., Australopithecus spp.). Morphometric prediction equations using stature and bi-iliac breadth avoid this problem, but their applicability to early hominins, some of which differ in both size and proportions from modern adult humans, has not been demonstrated. Here we use mean stature, bi-iliac breadth, and body mass from a global sample of human juveniles ranging in age from 6 to 12 years (n = 530 age- and sex-specific group annual means from 33 countries/regions) to evaluate the accuracy of several published morphometric prediction equations when applied to small humans. Though the body proportions of modern human juveniles likely differ from those of small-bodied early hominins, human juveniles (like fossil hominins) often differ in size and proportions from adult human reference samples and, accordingly, serve as a useful model for assessing the robustness of morphometric prediction equations. Morphometric equations based on adults systematically underpredict body mass in the youngest age groups and moderately overpredict body mass in the older groups, which fall in the body size range of adult Australopithecus (∼26-46 kg). Differences in body proportions, notably the ratio of lower limb length to stature, influence predictive accuracy. Ontogenetic changes in these body proportions likely influence the shift in prediction error (from under- to overprediction). However, because morphometric equations are reasonably accurate when applied to this juvenile test sample, we argue these equations may be used to predict body mass in small-bodied hominins, despite the potential for some error induced by differing body proportions and/or extrapolation beyond the original reference sample range. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Urine trouble: a social history of bedwetting and its regulation.

PubMed

Hurl, Chris

2011-01-01

Bedwetting has confounded the presumed boundaries of the human body, existing in a fluid space, between the normal and pathological, its treatment has demanded the application of a wide array of different technologies, each based on a distinct conception of the relationship between the body and personality, human organs and personal conduct. In tracing the social history of bedwetting and its regulation, this article examines the ontological assumptions underpinning the treatment of bedwetting and how they have changed over the past two centuries. Through the analysis of medical journals, newspaper articles and magazine advertisements, different topologies are identified which redefine the boundaries of the human body and its capacities. From 16th-century naturalism, in which the human body is subordinated to a cosmic totality, to the circumscribed space of 19th-century paediatrics and the expansive circuits of behavioural psychology and modern psychoanalysis, the body has become multiplied, differently enacted through the application of diverse technologies. It was be shown how coordinating the messy and divergent conceptions of the human body has posed an endemic problem for the human sciences, and how the enduring tension between object enactment and subject constitution is an expression of modern "baroque" subjectivity.

Current perspective on assessment of human body proportions of relevance to amputees.

PubMed

Osterkamp, L K

1995-02-01

Weights of segmental components of the human body are important when evaluating the nutritional status of an amputee. Original standards for components were compiled in 1889 using three male cadavers. Since that time, studies of living subjects have shown men and women to be similar in percentage weight of body components. Cadaver data from 1955 and 1969, which were based on 21 male subjects, showed that human bodies carry greater weight in the head and torso and less weight in legs and arms than indicated by the earlier data. Some differences in component weight may be attributable to ethnicity and aging, but further research is needed to define these differences. The 1955 and 1969 data--whether the result of larger sample size, ethnic differences, or actual change in human body proportions over a 60-year period--are different from the standards for body proportions in the 1889 data, which are presently used, and should be incorporated into the assessment of weight status of amputees.

Human blood metabolite timetable indicates internal body time

PubMed Central

Kasukawa, Takeya; Sugimoto, Masahiro; Hida, Akiko; Minami, Yoichi; Mori, Masayo; Honma, Sato; Honma, Ken-ichi; Mishima, Kazuo; Soga, Tomoyoshi; Ueda, Hiroki R.

2012-01-01

A convenient way to estimate internal body time (BT) is essential for chronotherapy and time-restricted feeding, both of which use body-time information to maximize potency and minimize toxicity during drug administration and feeding, respectively. Previously, we proposed a molecular timetable based on circadian-oscillating substances in multiple mouse organs or blood to estimate internal body time from samples taken at only a few time points. Here we applied this molecular-timetable concept to estimate and evaluate internal body time in humans. We constructed a 1.5-d reference timetable of oscillating metabolites in human blood samples with 2-h sampling frequency while simultaneously controlling for the confounding effects of activity level, light, temperature, sleep, and food intake. By using this metabolite timetable as a reference, we accurately determined internal body time within 3 h from just two anti-phase blood samples. Our minimally invasive, molecular-timetable method with human blood enables highly optimized and personalized medicine. PMID:22927403

Experimental Quasi-Microwave Whole-Body Averaged SAR Estimation Method Using Cylindrical-External Field Scanning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kawamura, Yoshifumi; Hikage, Takashi; Nojima, Toshio

The aim of this study is to develop a new whole-body averaged specific absorption rate (SAR) estimation method based on the external-cylindrical field scanning technique. This technique is adopted with the goal of simplifying the dosimetry estimation of human phantoms that have different postures or sizes. An experimental scaled model system is constructed. In order to examine the validity of the proposed method for realistic human models, we discuss the pros and cons of measurements and numerical analyses based on the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. We consider the anatomical European human phantoms and plane-wave in the 2GHz mobile phone frequency band. The measured whole-body averaged SAR results obtained by the proposed method are compared with the results of the FDTD analyses.

Body-Based Gender Recognition Using Images from Visible and Thermal Cameras

PubMed Central

Nguyen, Dat Tien; Park, Kang Ryoung

2016-01-01

Gender information has many useful applications in computer vision systems, such as surveillance systems, counting the number of males and females in a shopping mall, accessing control systems in restricted areas, or any human-computer interaction system. In most previous studies, researchers attempted to recognize gender by using visible light images of the human face or body. However, shadow, illumination, and time of day greatly affect the performance of these methods. To overcome this problem, we propose a new gender recognition method based on the combination of visible light and thermal camera images of the human body. Experimental results, through various kinds of feature extraction and fusion methods, show that our approach is efficient for gender recognition through a comparison of recognition rates with conventional systems. PMID:26828487

Body-Based Gender Recognition Using Images from Visible and Thermal Cameras.

PubMed

Nguyen, Dat Tien; Park, Kang Ryoung

2016-01-27

Gender information has many useful applications in computer vision systems, such as surveillance systems, counting the number of males and females in a shopping mall, accessing control systems in restricted areas, or any human-computer interaction system. In most previous studies, researchers attempted to recognize gender by using visible light images of the human face or body. However, shadow, illumination, and time of day greatly affect the performance of these methods. To overcome this problem, we propose a new gender recognition method based on the combination of visible light and thermal camera images of the human body. Experimental results, through various kinds of feature extraction and fusion methods, show that our approach is efficient for gender recognition through a comparison of recognition rates with conventional systems.

Body Fluids Monitor

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Siconolfi, Steven F. (Inventor)

2000-01-01

Method and apparatus are described for determining volumes of body fluids in a subject using bioelectrical response spectroscopy. The human body is represented using an electrical circuit. Intra-cellular water is represented by a resistor in series with a capacitor; extra-cellular water is represented by a resistor in series with two parallel inductors. The parallel inductors represent the resistance due to vascular fluids. An alternating, low amperage, multifrequency signal is applied to determine a subject's impedance and resistance. From these data, statistical regression is used to determine a 1% impedance where the subject's impedance changes by no more than 1% over a 25 kHz interval. Circuit component, of the human body circuit are determined based on the 1% impedance. Equations for calculating total body water, extra-cellular water, total blood volume, and plasma volume are developed based on the circuit components.

Visual Coding of Human Bodies: Perceptual Aftereffects Reveal Norm-Based, Opponent Coding of Body Identity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rhodes, Gillian; Jeffery, Linda; Boeing, Alexandra; Calder, Andrew J.

2013-01-01

Despite the discovery of body-selective neural areas in occipitotemporal cortex, little is known about how bodies are visually coded. We used perceptual adaptation to determine how body identity is coded. Brief exposure to a body (e.g., anti-Rose) biased perception toward an identity with opposite properties (Rose). Moreover, the size of this…

Visual coding of human bodies: perceptual aftereffects reveal norm-based, opponent coding of body identity.

PubMed

Rhodes, Gillian; Jeffery, Linda; Boeing, Alexandra; Calder, Andrew J

2013-04-01

Despite the discovery of body-selective neural areas in occipitotemporal cortex, little is known about how bodies are visually coded. We used perceptual adaptation to determine how body identity is coded. Brief exposure to a body (e.g., anti-Rose) biased perception toward an identity with opposite properties (Rose). Moreover, the size of this aftereffect increased with adaptor extremity, as predicted by norm-based, opponent coding of body identity. A size change between adapt and test bodies minimized the effects of low-level, retinotopic adaptation. These results demonstrate that body identity, like face identity, is opponent coded in higher-level vision. More generally, they show that a norm-based multidimensional framework, which is well established for face perception, may provide a powerful framework for understanding body perception.

Review-Research on the physical training model of human body based on HQ.

PubMed

Junjie, Liu

2016-11-01

Health quotient (HQ) is the newest health culture and concept in the 21st century, and the analysis of the human body sports model is not enough mature at present, what's more, the purpose of this paper is to study the integration of the two subjects the health quotient and the sport model. This paper draws the conclusion that physical training and education in colleges and universities can improve the health quotient, and it will make students possess a more healthy body and mind. Then through a new rigid body model of sports to simulate the human physical exercise. After that this paper has an in-depth study on the dynamic model of the human body movement on the basis of establishing the matrix and equation. The simulation results of the human body bicycle riding and pole throwing show that the human body joint movement simulation can be realized and it has a certain operability as well. By means of such simulated calculation, we can come to a conclusion that the movement of the ankle joint, knee joint and hip joint's motion law and real motion are basically the same. So it further verify the accuracy of the motion model, which lay the foundation of other research movement model, also, the study of the movement model is an important method in the study of human health in the future.

More-Realistic Digital Modeling of a Human Body

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rogge, Renee

2010-01-01

A MATLAB computer program has been written to enable improved (relative to an older program) modeling of a human body for purposes of designing space suits and other hardware with which an astronaut must interact. The older program implements a kinematic model based on traditional anthropometric measurements that do provide important volume and surface information. The present program generates a three-dimensional (3D) whole-body model from 3D body-scan data. The program utilizes thin-plate spline theory to reposition the model without need for additional scans.

Human motion analysis with detection of subpart deformations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Juhui; Lorette, Guy; Bouthemy, Patrick

1992-06-01

One essential constraint used in 3-D motion estimation from optical projections is the rigidity assumption. Because of muscle deformations in human motion, this rigidity requirement is often violated for some regions on the human body. Global methods usually fail to bring stable solutions. This paper presents a model-based approach to combating the effect of muscle deformations in human motion analysis. The approach developed is based on two main stages. In the first stage, the human body is partitioned into different areas, where each area is consistent with a general motion model (not necessarily corresponding to a physical existing motion pattern). In the second stage, the regions are eliminated under the hypothesis that they are not induced by a specific human motion pattern. Each hypothesis is generated by making use of specific knowledge about human motion. A global method is used to estimate the 3-D motion parameters in basis of valid segments. Experiments based on a cycling motion sequence are presented.

Modeling for intra-body communication with bone effect.

PubMed

Pun, S H; Gao, Y M; Mak, P U; Du, M; Vai, M I

2009-01-01

Intra-body communication (IBC) is a new, different "wireless" communication technique based on the human tissue. This short range "wireless" communication technology provides an alternative solution to wearable sensors, home health system, telemedicine and implanted devices. The development of the IBC enables the possibilities of providing less complexity and convenient communication methodologies for these devices. By regarding human tissue as communication channel, IBC making use of the conductivities properties of human tissue to send electrical signal from transmitter to receiver. In this paper, the authors proposed a new mathematical model for galvanic coupling type IBC based on a human limb. Starting from the electromagnetic theory, the authors treat human tissue as volume conductor, which is in analogous with the bioelectric phenomena analysis. In order to explain the mechanism of galvanic coupling type technique of IBC, applying the quasi-static approximation, the governing equation can be reduced to Laplace Equation. Finally, the analytical model is evaluated with on-body measurement for testing its performance. The comparison result shows that the developed mathematical model can provide good approximation for galvanic coupling type IBC on human limb under low operating frequencies.

Fatty acids and small organic compounds bind to mineralo-organic nanoparticles derived from human body fluids as revealed by metabolomic analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Martel, Jan; Wu, Cheng-Yeu; Hung, Cheng-Yu; Wong, Tsui-Yin; Cheng, Ann-Joy; Cheng, Mei-Ling; Shiao, Ming-Shi; Young, John D.

2016-03-01

Nanoparticles entering the human body instantly become coated with a ``protein corona'' that influences the effects and distribution of the particles in vivo. Yet, whether nanoparticles may bind to other organic compounds remains unclear. Here we use an untargeted metabolomic approach based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography and quadruple time-of-flight mass spectrometry to identify the organic compounds that bind to mineral nanoparticles formed in human body fluids (serum, plasma, saliva, and urine). A wide range of organic compounds is identified, including fatty acids, glycerophospholipids, amino acids, sugars, and amides. Our results reveal that, in addition to the proteins identified previously, nanoparticles harbor an ``organic corona'' containing several fatty acids which may affect particle-cell interactions in vivo. This study provides a platform to study the organic corona of biological and synthetic nanoparticles found in the human body.Nanoparticles entering the human body instantly become coated with a ``protein corona'' that influences the effects and distribution of the particles in vivo. Yet, whether nanoparticles may bind to other organic compounds remains unclear. Here we use an untargeted metabolomic approach based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography and quadruple time-of-flight mass spectrometry to identify the organic compounds that bind to mineral nanoparticles formed in human body fluids (serum, plasma, saliva, and urine). A wide range of organic compounds is identified, including fatty acids, glycerophospholipids, amino acids, sugars, and amides. Our results reveal that, in addition to the proteins identified previously, nanoparticles harbor an ``organic corona'' containing several fatty acids which may affect particle-cell interactions in vivo. This study provides a platform to study the organic corona of biological and synthetic nanoparticles found in the human body. Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c5nr08116e

[Wireless human body communication technology].

PubMed

Sun, Lei; Zhang, Xiaojuan

2014-12-01

The Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a key part of the wearable monitoring technologies, which has many communication technologies to choose from, like Bluetooth, ZigBee, Ultra Wideband, and Wireless Human Body Communication (WHBC). As for the WHBC developed in recent years, it is worthy to be further studied. The WHBC has a strong momentum of growth and a natural advantage in the formation of WBAN. In this paper, we first briefly describe the technical background of WHBC, then introduce theoretical model of human-channel communication and digital transmission machine based on human channel. And finally we analyze various of the interference of the WHBC and show the AFH (Adaptive Frequency Hopping) technology which can effectively deal with the interference.

Current Applications of Chromatographic Methods in the Study of Human Body Fluids for Diagnosing Disorders.

PubMed

Jóźwik, Jagoda; Kałużna-Czaplińska, Joanna

2016-01-01

Currently, analysis of various human body fluids is one of the most essential and promising approaches to enable the discovery of biomarkers or pathophysiological mechanisms for disorders and diseases. Analysis of these fluids is challenging due to their complex composition and unique characteristics. Development of new analytical methods in this field has made it possible to analyze body fluids with higher selectivity, sensitivity, and precision. The composition and concentration of analytes in body fluids are most often determined by chromatography-based techniques. There is no doubt that proper use of knowledge that comes from a better understanding of the role of body fluids requires the cooperation of scientists of diverse specializations, including analytical chemists, biologists, and physicians. This article summarizes current knowledge about the application of different chromatographic methods in analyses of a wide range of compounds in human body fluids in order to diagnose certain diseases and disorders.

Customized Body Mapping to Facilitate the Ergonomic Design of Sportswear.

PubMed

Cao, Mingliang; Li, Yi; Guo, Yueping; Yao, Lei; Pan, Zhigeng

2016-01-01

A successful high-performance sportswear design that considers human factors should result in a significant increase in thermal comfort and reduce energy loss. The authors describe a body-mapping approach that facilitates the effective ergonomic design of sportswear. Their general framework can be customized based on the functional requirements of various sports and sportswear, the desired combination and selection of mapping areas for the human body, and customized quantitative data distribution of target physiological indicators.

Motion capture based identification of the human body inertial parameters.

PubMed

Venture, Gentiane; Ayusawa, Ko; Nakamura, Yoshihiko

2008-01-01

Identification of body inertia, masses and center of mass is an important data to simulate, monitor and understand dynamics of motion, to personalize rehabilitation programs. This paper proposes an original method to identify the inertial parameters of the human body, making use of motion capture data and contact forces measurements. It allows in-vivo painless estimation and monitoring of the inertial parameters. The method is described and then obtained experimental results are presented and discussed.

Human recognition based on head-shoulder contour extraction and BP neural network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kong, Xiao-fang; Wang, Xiu-qin; Gu, Guohua; Chen, Qian; Qian, Wei-xian

2014-11-01

In practical application scenarios like video surveillance and human-computer interaction, human body movements are uncertain because the human body is a non-rigid object. Based on the fact that the head-shoulder part of human body can be less affected by the movement, and will seldom be obscured by other objects, in human detection and recognition, a head-shoulder model with its stable characteristics can be applied as a detection feature to describe the human body. In order to extract the head-shoulder contour accurately, a head-shoulder model establish method with combination of edge detection and the mean-shift algorithm in image clustering has been proposed in this paper. First, an adaptive method of mixture Gaussian background update has been used to extract targets from the video sequence. Second, edge detection has been used to extract the contour of moving objects, and the mean-shift algorithm has been combined to cluster parts of target's contour. Third, the head-shoulder model can be established, according to the width and height ratio of human head-shoulder combined with the projection histogram of the binary image, and the eigenvectors of the head-shoulder contour can be acquired. Finally, the relationship between head-shoulder contour eigenvectors and the moving objects will be formed by the training of back-propagation (BP) neural network classifier, and the human head-shoulder model can be clustered for human detection and recognition. Experiments have shown that the method combined with edge detection and mean-shift algorithm proposed in this paper can extract the complete head-shoulder contour, with low calculating complexity and high efficiency.

Dichotomous Identification Keys: A Ladder to Higher Order Knowledge about the Human Body

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sorgo, Andrej

2006-01-01

We tried to enrich teaching human anatomy in high school biology lessons. Students construct dichotomous identification keys to the cells, tissues, organs, or body parts. By doing this, students have achieved higher-order cognitive levels of knowledge because construction of such keys is based on analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Students found…

Mathematical model of biological order state or syndrome in traditional Chinese medicine: based on electromagnetic radiation within the human body.

PubMed

Han, Jinxiang; Huang, Jinzhao

2012-03-01

In this study, based on the resonator model and exciplex model of electromagnetic radiation within the human body, mathematical model of biological order state, also referred to as syndrome in traditional Chinese medicine, was established and expressed as: "Sy = v/ 1n(6I + 1)". This model provides the theoretical foundation for experimental research addressing the order state of living system, especially the quantitative research syndrome in traditional Chinese medicine.

Heat balance model for a human body in the form of wet bulb globe temperature indices.

PubMed

Sakoi, Tomonori; Mochida, Tohru; Kurazumi, Yoshihito; Kuwabara, Kohei; Horiba, Yosuke; Sawada, Shin-Ichi

2018-01-01

The purpose of this study is to expand the empirically derived wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) index to a rational thermal index based on the heat balance for a human body. We derive the heat balance model in the same form as the WBGT for a human engaged in moderate intensity work with a metabolic heat production of 174W/m 2 while wearing typical vapor-permeable clothing under shady and sunny conditions. Two important relationships are revealed based on this derivation: (1) the natural wet bulb and black globe temperature coefficients in the WBGT coincide with the heat balance equation for a human body with a fixed skin wettedness of approximately 0.45 at a fixed skin temperature; and (2) the WBGT can be interpreted as the environmental potential to increase skin temperature rather than the heat storage rate of a human body. We propose an adjustment factor calculation method that supports the application of WBGT for humans dressed in various clothing types and working under various air velocity conditions. Concurrently, we note difficulties in adjusting the WBGT by using a single factor for humans wearing vapor-impermeable protective clothing. The WBGT for shady conditions does not need adjustment depending on the positive radiant field (i.e., when a radiant heat source exists), whereas that for the sunny condition requires adjustments because it underestimates heat stress, which may result in insufficient human protection measures. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Modeling and characterization of different channels based on human body communication.

PubMed

Jingzhen Li; Zedong Nie; Yuhang Liu; Lei Wang

2017-07-01

Human body communication (HBC), which uses the human body as a transmission medium for electrical signals, provides a prospective communication solution for body sensor networks (BSNs). In this paper, an inhomogeneous model which includes the tissue layers of skin, fat, and muscle is proposed to study the propagation characteristics of different HBC channels. Specifically, the HBC channels, namely, the on-body to on-body (OB-OB)channel, on-body to in-body (OB-IB) channel, in-body to on-body (IB-OB) channel, and in-body to in-body (IB-IB)channel, are studied over different frequencies (from 1MHz to 100MHz) through numerical simulations with finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The results show that the gain of OB-IB channel and IB-OB channel is almost the same. The gain of IB-IB channel is greater than other channels in the frequency range 1MHz to 70MHz. In addition, the gain of all channels is associated with the channel length and communication frequency. The simulations are verified by experimental measurements in a porcine tissue sample. The results show that the simulations are in agreement with the measurements.

A Single Camera Motion Capture System for Human-Computer Interaction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Okada, Ryuzo; Stenger, Björn

This paper presents a method for markerless human motion capture using a single camera. It uses tree-based filtering to efficiently propagate a probability distribution over poses of a 3D body model. The pose vectors and associated shapes are arranged in a tree, which is constructed by hierarchical pairwise clustering, in order to efficiently evaluate the likelihood in each frame. Anew likelihood function based on silhouette matching is proposed that improves the pose estimation of thinner body parts, i. e. the limbs. The dynamic model takes self-occlusion into account by increasing the variance of occluded body-parts, thus allowing for recovery when the body part reappears. We present two applications of our method that work in real-time on a Cell Broadband Engine™: a computer game and a virtual clothing application.

Wearable sensors in intelligent clothing for measuring human body temperature based on optical fiber Bragg grating.

PubMed

Li, Hongqiang; Yang, Haijing; Li, Enbang; Liu, Zhihui; Wei, Kejia

2012-05-21

Measuring body temperature is considerably important to physiological studies as well as clinical investigations. In recent years, numerous observations have been reported and various methods of measurement have been employed. The present paper introduces a novel wearable sensor in intelligent clothing for human body temperature measurement. The objective is the integration of optical fiber Bragg grating (FBG)-based sensors into functional textiles to extend the capabilities of wearable solutions for body temperature monitoring. In addition, the temperature sensitivity is 150 pm/°C, which is almost 15 times higher than that of a bare FBG. This study combines large and small pipes during fabrication to implant FBG sensors into the fabric. The law of energy conservation of the human body is considered in determining heat transfer between the body and its clothing. The mathematical model of heat transmission between the body and clothed FBG sensors is studied, and the steady-state thermal analysis is presented. The simulation results show the capability of the material to correct the actual body temperature. Based on the skin temperature obtained by the weighted average method, this paper presents the five points weighted coefficients model using both sides of the chest, armpits, and the upper back for the intelligent clothing. The weighted coefficients of 0.0826 for the left chest, 0.3706 for the left armpit, 0.3706 for the right armpit, 0.0936 for the upper back, and 0.0826 for the right chest were obtained using Cramer's Rule. Using the weighting coefficient, the deviation of the experimental result was ± 0.18 °C, which favors the use for clinical armpit temperature monitoring. Moreover, in special cases when several FBG sensors are broken, the weighted coefficients of the other sensors could be changed to obtain accurate body temperature.

Anthropometric body measurements based on multi-view stereo image reconstruction.

PubMed

Li, Zhaoxin; Jia, Wenyan; Mao, Zhi-Hong; Li, Jie; Chen, Hsin-Chen; Zuo, Wangmeng; Wang, Kuanquan; Sun, Mingui

2013-01-01

Anthropometric measurements, such as the circumferences of the hip, arm, leg and waist, waist-to-hip ratio, and body mass index, are of high significance in obesity and fitness evaluation. In this paper, we present a home based imaging system capable of conducting anthropometric measurements. Body images are acquired at different angles using a home camera and a simple rotating disk. Advanced image processing algorithms are utilized for 3D body surface reconstruction. A coarse body shape model is first established from segmented body silhouettes. Then, this model is refined through an inter-image consistency maximization process based on an energy function. Our experimental results using both a mannequin surrogate and a real human body validate the feasibility of the proposed system.

Anthropometric Body Measurements Based on Multi-View Stereo Image Reconstruction*

PubMed Central

Li, Zhaoxin; Jia, Wenyan; Mao, Zhi-Hong; Li, Jie; Chen, Hsin-Chen; Zuo, Wangmeng; Wang, Kuanquan; Sun, Mingui

2013-01-01

Anthropometric measurements, such as the circumferences of the hip, arm, leg and waist, waist-to-hip ratio, and body mass index, are of high significance in obesity and fitness evaluation. In this paper, we present a home based imaging system capable of conducting automatic anthropometric measurements. Body images are acquired at different angles using a home camera and a simple rotating disk. Advanced image processing algorithms are utilized for 3D body surface reconstruction. A coarse body shape model is first established from segmented body silhouettes. Then, this model is refined through an inter-image consistency maximization process based on an energy function. Our experimental results using both a mannequin surrogate and a real human body validate the feasibility of proposed system. PMID:24109700

Measurement and modelling of x-direction apparent mass of the seated human body-cushioned seat system.

PubMed

Stein, George Juraj; Múcka, Peter; Chmúrny, Rudolf; Hinz, Barbara; Blüthner, Ralph

2007-01-01

For modelling purposes and for evaluation of driver's seat performance in the vertical direction various mechano-mathematical models of the seated human body have been developed and standardized by the ISO. No such models exist hitherto for human body sitting in an upright position in a cushioned seat upper part, used in industrial environment, where the fore-and-aft vibrations play an important role. The interaction with the steering wheel has to be taken into consideration, as well as, the position of the human body upper torso with respect to the cushioned seat back as observed in real driving conditions. This complex problem has to be simplified first to arrive at manageable simpler models, which still reflect the main problem features. In a laboratory study accelerations and forces in x-direction were measured at the seat base during whole-body vibration in the fore-and-aft direction (random signal in the frequency range between 0.3 and 30 Hz, vibration magnitudes 0.28, 0.96, and 2.03 ms(-2) unweighted rms). Thirteen male subjects with body masses between 62.2 and 103.6 kg were chosen for the tests. They sat on a cushioned driver seat with hands on a support and backrest contact in the lumbar region only. Based on these laboratory measurements a linear model of the system-seated human body and cushioned seat in the fore-and-aft direction has been developed. The model accounts for the reaction from the steering wheel. Model parameters have been identified for each subject-measured apparent mass values (modulus and phase). The developed model structure and the averaged parameters can be used for further bio-dynamical research in this field.

Modal analysis of human body vibration model for Indian subjects under sitting posture.

PubMed

Singh, Ishbir; Nigam, S P; Saran, V H

2015-01-01

Need and importance of modelling in human body vibration research studies are well established. The study of biodynamic responses of human beings can be classified into experimental and analytical methods. In the past few decades, plenty of mathematical models have been developed based on the diverse field measurements to describe the biodynamic responses of human beings. In this paper, a complete study on lumped parameter model derived from 50th percentile anthropometric data for a seated 54- kg Indian male subject without backrest support under free un-damped conditions has been carried out considering human body segments to be of ellipsoidal shape. Conventional lumped parameter modelling considers the human body as several rigid masses interconnected by springs and dampers. In this study, concept of mass of interconnecting springs has been incorporated and eigenvalues thus obtained are found to be closer to the values reported in the literature. Results obtained clearly establish decoupling of vertical and fore-and-aft oscillations. The mathematical modelling of human body vibration studies help in validating the experimental investigations for ride comfort of a sitting subject. This study clearly establishes the decoupling of vertical and fore-and-aft vibrations and helps in better understanding of possible human response to single and multi-axial excitations.

Gesture Recognition Based on the Probability Distribution of Arm Trajectories

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wan, Khairunizam; Sawada, Hideyuki

The use of human motions for the interaction between humans and computers is becoming an attractive alternative to verbal media, especially through the visual interpretation of the human body motion. In particular, hand gestures are used as non-verbal media for the humans to communicate with machines that pertain to the use of the human gestures to interact with them. This paper introduces a 3D motion measurement of the human upper body for the purpose of the gesture recognition, which is based on the probability distribution of arm trajectories. In this study, by examining the characteristics of the arm trajectories given by a signer, motion features are selected and classified by using a fuzzy technique. Experimental results show that the use of the features extracted from arm trajectories effectively works on the recognition of dynamic gestures of a human, and gives a good performance to classify various gesture patterns.

How Are Bodies Special? Effects Of Body Features On Spatial Reasoning

PubMed Central

Yu, Alfred B.; Zacks, Jeffrey M.

2015-01-01

Embodied views of cognition argue that cognitive processes are influenced by bodily experience. This implies that when people make spatial judgments about human bodies, they bring to bear embodied knowledge that affects spatial reasoning performance. Here, we examined the specific contribution to spatial reasoning of visual features associated with the human body. We used two different tasks to elicit distinct visuospatial transformations: object-based transformations, as elicited in typical mental rotation tasks, and perspective transformations, used in tasks in which people deliberately adopt the egocentric perspective of another person. Body features facilitated performance in both tasks. This result suggests that observers are particularly sensitive to the presence of a human head and body, and that these features allow observers to quickly recognize and encode the spatial configuration of a figure. Contrary to prior reports, this facilitation was not related to the transformation component of task performance. These results suggest that body features facilitate task components other than spatial transformation, including the encoding of stimulus orientation. PMID:26252072

Where is your shoulder? Neural correlates of localizing others' body parts.

PubMed

Felician, Olivier; Anton, Jean-Luc; Nazarian, Bruno; Roth, Muriel; Roll, Jean-Pierre; Romaiguère, Patricia

2009-07-01

Neuropsychological studies, based on pointing to body parts paradigms, suggest that left posterior parietal lobe is involved in the visual processing of other persons' bodies. In addition, some patients have been found with mild deficit when dealing with abstract human representations but marked impairment with realistically represented bodies, suggesting that this processing could be modulated by the abstraction level of the body to be analyzed. These issues were examined in the present fMRI experiment, designed to evaluate the effects of visually processing human bodies of different abstraction levels on brain activity. The human specificity of the studied processes was assessed using whole-body representations of humans and of dogs, while the effects of the abstraction level of the representation were assessed using drawings, photographs, and videos. To assess the effect of species and stimulus complexity on BOLD signal, we performed a two-way ANOVA with factors species (human versus animal) and stimulus complexity (drawings, photographs and videos). When pointing to body parts irrespective of the stimulus complexity, we observed a positive effect of humans upon animals in the left angular gyrus (BA 39), as suggested by lesion studies. This effect was also present in midline cortical structures including mesial prefrontal, anterior cingulate and precuneal regions. When pointing to body parts irrespective of the species to be processed, we observed a positive effect of videos upon photographs and drawings in the right superior parietal lobule (BA 7), and bilaterally in the superior temporal sulcus, the supramarginal gyrus (BA 40) and the lateral extrastriate visual cortex (including the "extrastriate body area"). Taken together, these data suggest that, in comparison with other mammalians, the visual processing of other humans' bodies is associated with left angular gyrus activity, but also with midline structures commonly implicated in self-reference. They also suggest a role of the lateral extrastriate cortex in the processing of dynamic and biologically relevant body representations.

AC Electric Field Communication for Human-Area Networking

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kado, Yuichi; Shinagawa, Mitsuru

We have proposed a human-area networking technology that uses the surface of the human body as a data transmission path and uses an AC electric field signal below the resonant frequency of the human body. This technology aims to achieve a “touch and connect” intuitive form of communication by using the electric field signal that propagates along the surface of the human body, while suppressing both the electric field radiating from the human body and mutual interference. To suppress the radiation field, the frequency of the AC signal that excites the transmitter electrode must be lowered, and the sensitivity of the receiver must be raised while reducing transmission power to its minimally required level. We describe how we are developing AC electric field communication technologies to promote the further evolution of a human-area network in support of ubiquitous services, focusing on three main characteristics, enabling-transceiver technique, application-scenario modeling, and communications quality evaluation. Special attention is paid to the relationship between electro-magnetic compatibility evaluation and regulations for extremely low-power radio stations based on Japan's Radio Law.

Mass spectrometry-based cDNA profiling as a potential tool for human body fluid identification.

PubMed

Donfack, Joseph; Wiley, Anissa

2015-05-01

Several mRNA markers have been exhaustively evaluated for the identification of human venous blood, saliva, and semen in forensic genetics. As new candidate human body fluid specific markers are discovered, evaluated, and reported in the scientific literature, there is an increasing trend toward determining the ideal markers for cDNA profiling of body fluids of forensic interest. However, it has not been determined which molecular genetics-based technique(s) should be utilized to assess the performance of these markers. In recent years, only a few confirmatory, mRNA/cDNA-based methods have been evaluated for applications in body fluid identification. The most frequently described methods tested to date include quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and capillary electrophoresis (CE). However these methods, in particular qPCR, often favor narrow multiplex PCR due to the availability of a limited number of fluorescent dyes/tags. In an attempt to address this technological constraint, this study explored matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) for human body fluid identification via cDNA profiling of venous blood, saliva, and semen. Using cDNA samples at 20pg input phosphoglycerate kinase 1 (PGK1) amounts, body fluid specific markers for the candidate genes were amplified in their corresponding body fluid (i.e., venous blood, saliva, or semen) and absent in the remaining two (100% specificity). The results of this study provide an initial indication that MALDI-TOF MS is a potential fluorescent dye-free alternative method for body fluid identification in forensic casework. However, the inherent issues of low amounts of mRNA, and the damage caused to mRNA by environmental exposures, extraction processes, and storage conditions are important factors that significantly hinder the implementation of cDNA profiling into forensic casework. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

On parts and holes: the spatial structure of the human body.

PubMed

Donnelly, Maureen

2004-01-01

Spatial representation and reasoning is a central component of medical informatics. The spatial concepts most often used in medicine are not the quantitative, point-based concepts of classical geometry, but rather qualitative relations among extended objects such as body parts. A mereotopology is a formal theory of qualitative spatial relations, such as parthood and connection. This paper considers how an extension of mereotopology which includes also location relations can be used to represent and reason about the spatial structure of the human body.

Temperature distribution in the human body under various conditions of induced hyperthermia

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Korobko, O. V.; Perelman, T. L.; Fradkin, S. Z.

1977-01-01

A mathematical model based on heat balance equations was developed for studying temperature distribution in the human body under deep hyperthermia which is often induced in the treatment of malignant tumors. The model yields results which are in satisfactory agreement with experimental data. The distribution of temperature under various conditions of induced hyperthermia, i.e. as a function of water temperature and supply rate, is examined on the basis of temperature distribution curves in various body zones.

Commentary: Crowdsourcing, Foldit, and Scientific Discovery Games

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parslow, Graham R.

2013-01-01

The web has created new possibilities for collaboration that fit under the terms crowdsourcing and human-based computation. Crowdsourcing applies when a task or problem is outsourced to an undefined public rather than a specific body. Human-based computation refers to ways that humans and computers can work together to solve problems. These two…

Usage of noncontact human body measurements for development of Army Work Wear Trousers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dabolina, Inga; Lapkovska, Eva; Vilumsone, Ausma

2017-10-01

The paper is based on issues related to imperfections of clothing fit, garment construction solutions and control measurement systems of finished products, which were identified in the research process analysing army soldier work wear trousers. The aim is to obtain target group body measurements using noncontact anthropometrical data acquisition method (3D scanning) for selection and analysis of scanned data suitable for trouser design. Tasks include comparison of scanned data with manually taken body measurements and different corresponding human body measurement standard data for establishing potential advantages of noncontact method usage in solving different trouser design issues.

The effectiveness of web-based, multimedia tutorials for teaching methods of human body composition analysis.

PubMed

Buzzell, Paul R; Chamberlain, Valerie M; Pintauro, Stephen J

2002-12-01

This study examined the effectiveness of a series of Web-based, multimedia tutorials on methods of human body composition analysis. Tutorials were developed around four body composition topics: hydrodensitometry (underwater weighing), dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, bioelectrical impedance analysis, and total body electrical conductivity. Thirty-two students enrolled in the course were randomly assigned to learn the material through either the Web-based tutorials only ("Computer"), a traditional lecture format ("Lecture"), or lectures supplemented with Web-based tutorials ("Both"). All students were administered a validated pretest before randomization and an identical posttest at the completion of the course. The reliability of the test was 0.84. The mean score changes from pretest to posttest were not significantly different among the groups (65.4 plus minus 17.31, 78.82 plus minus 21.50, and 76 plus minus 21.22 for the Computer, Both, and Lecture groups, respectively). Additionally, a Likert-type assessment found equally positive attitudes toward all three formats. The results indicate that Web-based tutorials are as effective as the traditional lecture format for teaching these topics.

About possibility of temperature trace observing on the human skin using commercially available IR camera

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Trofimov, Vyacheslav A.; Trofimov, Vladislav V.; Shestakov, Ivan L.; Blednov, Roman G.

2016-09-01

One of urgent security problems is a detection of objects placed inside the human body. Obviously, for safety reasons one cannot use X-rays for such object detection widely and often. Three years ago, we have demonstrated principal possibility to see a temperature trace, induced by food eating or water drinking, on the human body skin by using a passive THz camera. However, this camera is very expensive. Therefore, for practice it will be very convenient if one can use the IR camera for this purpose. In contrast to passive THz camera using, the IR camera does not allow to see the object under clothing, if an image, produced by this camera, is used directly. Of course, this is a big disadvantage for a security problem solution based on the IR camera using. To overcome this disadvantage we develop novel approach for computer processing of IR camera images. It allows us to increase a temperature resolution of IR camera as well as increasing of human year effective susceptibility. As a consequence of this, a possibility for seeing of a human body temperature changing through clothing appears. We analyze IR images of a person, which drinks water and eats chocolate. We follow a temperature trace on human body skin, caused by changing of temperature inside the human body. Some experiments were made with measurements of a body temperature covered by T-shirt. Shown results are very important for the detection of forbidden objects, cancelled inside the human body, by using non-destructive control without using X-rays.

Tele-operated search robot for human detection using histogram of oriented objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cruz, Febus Reidj G.; Avendaño, Glenn O.; Manlises, Cyrel O.; Avellanosa, James Jason G.; Abina, Jyacinth Camille F.; Masaquel, Albert M.; Siapno, Michael Lance O.; Chung, Wen-Yaw

2017-02-01

Disasters such as typhoons, tornadoes, and earthquakes are inevitable. Aftermaths of these disasters include the missing people. Using robots with human detection capabilities to locate the missing people, can dramatically reduce the harm and risk to those who work in such circumstances. This study aims to: design and build a tele-operated robot; implement in MATLAB an algorithm for the detection of humans; and create a database of human identification based on various positions, angles, light intensity, as well as distances from which humans will be identified. Different light intensities were made by using Photoshop to simulate smoke, dust and water drops conditions. After processing the image, the system can indicate either a human is detected or not detected. Testing with bodies covered was also conducted to test the algorithm's robustness. Based on the results, the algorithm can detect humans with full body shown. For upright and lying positions, detection can happen from 8 feet to 20 feet. For sitting position, detection can happen from 2 feet to 20 feet with slight variances in results because of different lighting conditions. The distances greater than 20 feet, no humans can be processed or false negatives can occur. For bodies covered, the algorithm can detect humans in cases made under given circumstances. On three positions, humans can be detected from 0 degrees to 180 degrees under normal, with smoke, with dust, and with water droplet conditions. This study was able to design and build a tele-operated robot with MATLAB algorithm that can detect humans with an overall precision of 88.30%, from which a database was created for human identification based on various conditions, where humans will be identified.

Machine learning methods for classifying human physical activity from on-body accelerometers.

PubMed

Mannini, Andrea; Sabatini, Angelo Maria

2010-01-01

The use of on-body wearable sensors is widespread in several academic and industrial domains. Of great interest are their applications in ambulatory monitoring and pervasive computing systems; here, some quantitative analysis of human motion and its automatic classification are the main computational tasks to be pursued. In this paper, we discuss how human physical activity can be classified using on-body accelerometers, with a major emphasis devoted to the computational algorithms employed for this purpose. In particular, we motivate our current interest for classifiers based on Hidden Markov Models (HMMs). An example is illustrated and discussed by analysing a dataset of accelerometer time series.

Nonlinearity in the vertical transmissibility of seating: the role of the human body apparent mass and seat dynamic stiffness

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tufano, Saverio; Griffin, Michael J.

2013-01-01

The efficiency of a seat in reducing vibration depends on the characteristics of the vibration, the dynamic characteristics of the seat, and the dynamic characteristics of the person sitting on the seat. However, it is not known whether seat cushions influence the dynamic response of the human body, whether the human body influences the dynamic response of seat cushions, or the relative importance of human body nonlinearity and seat nonlinearity in causing nonlinearity in measures of seat transmissibility. This study was designed to investigate the nonlinearity of the coupled seat and human body systems and to compare the apparent mass of the human body supported on rigid and foam seats. A frequency domain model was used to identify the dynamic parameters of seat foams and investigate their dependence on the subject-sitting weight and hip breadth. With 15 subjects, the force and acceleration at the seat base and acceleration at the subject interface were measured during random vertical vibration excitation (0.25-25 Hz) at each of five vibration magnitudes, (0.25-1.6 ms-2 r.m.s.) with four seating conditions (rigid flat seat and three foam cushions). The measurements are presented in terms of the subject's apparent mass on the rigid and foam seat surfaces, and the transmissibility and dynamic stiffness of each of the foam cushions. Both the human body and the foams showed nonlinear softening behaviour, which resulted in nonlinear cushion transmissibility. The apparent masses of subjects sitting on the rigid seat and on foam cushions were similar, but with an apparent increase in damping when sitting on the foams. The foam dynamic stiffness showed complex correlations with characteristics of the human body, which differed between foams. The nonlinearities in cushion transmissibilities, expressed in terms of changes in resonance frequencies and moduli, were more dependent on human body nonlinearity than on cushion nonlinearity.

Estimation of Human Body Volume (BV) from Anthropometric Measurements Based on Three-Dimensional (3D) Scan Technique.

PubMed

Liu, Xingguo; Niu, Jianwei; Ran, Linghua; Liu, Taijie

2017-08-01

This study aimed to develop estimation formulae for the total human body volume (BV) of adult males using anthropometric measurements based on a three-dimensional (3D) scanning technique. Noninvasive and reliable methods to predict the total BV from anthropometric measurements based on a 3D scan technique were addressed in detail. A regression analysis of BV based on four key measurements was conducted for approximately 160 adult male subjects. Eight total models of human BV show that the predicted results fitted by the regression models were highly correlated with the actual BV (p < 0.001). Two metrics, the mean value of the absolute difference between the actual and predicted BV (V error ) and the mean value of the ratio between V error and actual BV (RV error ), were calculated. The linear model based on human weight was recommended as the most optimal due to its simplicity and high efficiency. The proposed estimation formulae are valuable for estimating total body volume in circumstances in which traditional underwater weighing or air displacement plethysmography is not applicable or accessible. This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266.

Fatty acids and small organic compounds bind to mineralo-organic nanoparticles derived from human body fluids as revealed by metabolomic analysis.

PubMed

Martel, Jan; Wu, Cheng-Yeu; Hung, Cheng-Yu; Wong, Tsui-Yin; Cheng, Ann-Joy; Cheng, Mei-Ling; Shiao, Ming-Shi; Young, John D

2016-03-14

Nanoparticles entering the human body instantly become coated with a "protein corona" that influences the effects and distribution of the particles in vivo. Yet, whether nanoparticles may bind to other organic compounds remains unclear. Here we use an untargeted metabolomic approach based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography and quadruple time-of-flight mass spectrometry to identify the organic compounds that bind to mineral nanoparticles formed in human body fluids (serum, plasma, saliva, and urine). A wide range of organic compounds is identified, including fatty acids, glycerophospholipids, amino acids, sugars, and amides. Our results reveal that, in addition to the proteins identified previously, nanoparticles harbor an "organic corona" containing several fatty acids which may affect particle-cell interactions in vivo. This study provides a platform to study the organic corona of biological and synthetic nanoparticles found in the human body.

The Human Retrosplenial Cortex and Thalamus Code Head Direction in a Global Reference Frame.

PubMed

Shine, Jonathan P; Valdés-Herrera, José P; Hegarty, Mary; Wolbers, Thomas

2016-06-15

Spatial navigation is a multisensory process involving integration of visual and body-based cues. In rodents, head direction (HD) cells, which are most abundant in the thalamus, integrate these cues to code facing direction. Human fMRI studies examining HD coding in virtual environments (VE) have reported effects in retrosplenial complex and (pre-)subiculum, but not the thalamus. Furthermore, HD coding appeared insensitive to global landmarks. These tasks, however, provided only visual cues for orientation, and attending to global landmarks did not benefit task performance. In the present study, participants explored a VE comprising four separate locales, surrounded by four global landmarks. To provide body-based cues, participants wore a head-mounted display so that physical rotations changed facing direction in the VE. During subsequent MRI scanning, subjects saw stationary views of the environment and judged whether their orientation was the same as in the preceding trial. Parameter estimates extracted from retrosplenial cortex and the thalamus revealed significantly reduced BOLD responses when HD was repeated. Moreover, consistent with rodent findings, the signal did not continue to adapt over repetitions of the same HD. These results were supported by a whole-brain analysis showing additional repetition suppression in the precuneus. Together, our findings suggest that: (1) consistent with the rodent literature, the human thalamus may integrate visual and body-based, orientation cues; (2) global reference frame cues can be used to integrate HD across separate individual locales; and (3) immersive training procedures providing full body-based cues may help to elucidate the neural mechanisms supporting spatial navigation. In rodents, head direction (HD) cells signal facing direction in the environment via increased firing when the animal assumes a certain orientation. Distinct brain regions, the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) and thalamus, code for visual and vestibular cues of orientation, respectively. Putative HD signals have been observed in human RSC but not the thalamus, potentially because body-based cues were not provided. Here, participants encoded HD in a novel virtual environment while wearing a head-mounted display to provide body-based cues for orientation. In subsequent fMRI scanning, we found evidence of an HD signal in RSC, thalamus, and precuneus. These findings harmonize rodent and human data, and suggest that immersive training procedures provide a viable way to examine the neural basis of navigation. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/366371-11$15.00/0.

About possibility of temperature trace observing on a human skin through clothes by using computer processing of IR image

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Trofimov, Vyacheslav A.; Trofimov, Vladislav V.; Shestakov, Ivan L.; Blednov, Roman G.

2017-05-01

One of urgent security problems is a detection of objects placed inside the human body. Obviously, for safety reasons one cannot use X-rays for such object detection widely and often. For this purpose, we propose to use THz camera and IR camera. Below we continue a possibility of IR camera using for a detection of temperature trace on a human body. In contrast to passive THz camera using, the IR camera does not allow to see very pronounced the object under clothing. Of course, this is a big disadvantage for a security problem solution based on the IR camera using. To find possible ways for this disadvantage overcoming we make some experiments with IR camera, produced by FLIR Company and develop novel approach for computer processing of images captured by IR camera. It allows us to increase a temperature resolution of IR camera as well as human year effective susceptibility enhancing. As a consequence of this, a possibility for seeing of a human body temperature changing through clothing appears. We analyze IR images of a person, which drinks water and eats chocolate. We follow a temperature trace on human body skin, caused by changing of temperature inside the human body. Some experiments are made with observing of temperature trace from objects placed behind think overall. Demonstrated results are very important for the detection of forbidden objects, concealed inside the human body, by using non-destructive control without using X-rays.

Influence of the model's degree of freedom on human body dynamics identification.

PubMed

Maita, Daichi; Venture, Gentiane

2013-01-01

In fields of sports and rehabilitation, opportunities of using motion analysis of the human body have dramatically increased. To analyze the motion dynamics, a number of subject specific parameters and measurements are required. For example the contact forces measurement and the inertial parameters of each segment of the human body are necessary to compute the joint torques. In this study, in order to perform accurate dynamic analysis we propose to identify the inertial parameters of the human body and to evaluate the influence of the model's number of degrees of freedom (DoF) on the results. We use a method to estimate the inertial parameters without torque sensor, using generalized coordinates of the base link, joint angles and external forces information. We consider a 34DoF model, a 58DoF model, as well as the case when the human is manipulating a tool (here a tennis racket). We compare the obtained in results in terms of contact force estimation.

A Touch Sensing Technique Using the Effects of Extremely Low Frequency Fields on the Human Body.

PubMed

Elfekey, Hatem; Bastawrous, Hany Ayad; Okamoto, Shogo

2016-12-02

Touch sensing is a fundamental approach in human-to-machine interfaces, and is currently under widespread use. Many current applications use active touch sensing technologies. Passive touch sensing technologies are, however, more adequate to implement low power or energy harvesting touch sensing interfaces. This paper presents a passive touch sensing technique based on the fact that the human body is affected by the surrounding extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields, such as those of AC power lines. These external ELF fields induce electric potentials on the human body-because human tissues exhibit some conductivity at these frequencies-resulting in what is called AC hum. We therefore propose a passive touch sensing system that detects this hum noise when a human touch occurs, thus distinguishing between touch and non-touch events. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is validated by designing and implementing a flexible touch sensing keyboard.

Microbial community pattern detection in human body habitats via ensemble clustering framework.

PubMed

Yang, Peng; Su, Xiaoquan; Ou-Yang, Le; Chua, Hon-Nian; Li, Xiao-Li; Ning, Kang

2014-01-01

The human habitat is a host where microbial species evolve, function, and continue to evolve. Elucidating how microbial communities respond to human habitats is a fundamental and critical task, as establishing baselines of human microbiome is essential in understanding its role in human disease and health. Recent studies on healthy human microbiome focus on particular body habitats, assuming that microbiome develop similar structural patterns to perform similar ecosystem function under same environmental conditions. However, current studies usually overlook a complex and interconnected landscape of human microbiome and limit the ability in particular body habitats with learning models of specific criterion. Therefore, these methods could not capture the real-world underlying microbial patterns effectively. To obtain a comprehensive view, we propose a novel ensemble clustering framework to mine the structure of microbial community pattern on large-scale metagenomic data. Particularly, we first build a microbial similarity network via integrating 1920 metagenomic samples from three body habitats of healthy adults. Then a novel symmetric Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF) based ensemble model is proposed and applied onto the network to detect clustering pattern. Extensive experiments are conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of our model on deriving microbial community with respect to body habitat and host gender. From clustering results, we observed that body habitat exhibits a strong bound but non-unique microbial structural pattern. Meanwhile, human microbiome reveals different degree of structural variations over body habitat and host gender. In summary, our ensemble clustering framework could efficiently explore integrated clustering results to accurately identify microbial communities, and provide a comprehensive view for a set of microbial communities. The clustering results indicate that structure of human microbiome is varied systematically across body habitats and host genders. Such trends depict an integrated biography of microbial communities, which offer a new insight towards uncovering pathogenic model of human microbiome.

Microbial community pattern detection in human body habitats via ensemble clustering framework

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background The human habitat is a host where microbial species evolve, function, and continue to evolve. Elucidating how microbial communities respond to human habitats is a fundamental and critical task, as establishing baselines of human microbiome is essential in understanding its role in human disease and health. Recent studies on healthy human microbiome focus on particular body habitats, assuming that microbiome develop similar structural patterns to perform similar ecosystem function under same environmental conditions. However, current studies usually overlook a complex and interconnected landscape of human microbiome and limit the ability in particular body habitats with learning models of specific criterion. Therefore, these methods could not capture the real-world underlying microbial patterns effectively. Results To obtain a comprehensive view, we propose a novel ensemble clustering framework to mine the structure of microbial community pattern on large-scale metagenomic data. Particularly, we first build a microbial similarity network via integrating 1920 metagenomic samples from three body habitats of healthy adults. Then a novel symmetric Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF) based ensemble model is proposed and applied onto the network to detect clustering pattern. Extensive experiments are conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of our model on deriving microbial community with respect to body habitat and host gender. From clustering results, we observed that body habitat exhibits a strong bound but non-unique microbial structural pattern. Meanwhile, human microbiome reveals different degree of structural variations over body habitat and host gender. Conclusions In summary, our ensemble clustering framework could efficiently explore integrated clustering results to accurately identify microbial communities, and provide a comprehensive view for a set of microbial communities. The clustering results indicate that structure of human microbiome is varied systematically across body habitats and host genders. Such trends depict an integrated biography of microbial communities, which offer a new insight towards uncovering pathogenic model of human microbiome. PMID:25521415

A low power wearable transceiver for human body communication.

PubMed

Huang, Jin; Chen, Lian-Kang; Zhang, Yuan-Ting

2009-01-01

This paper reports a low power transceiver designed for wearable medical healthcare system. Based on a novel energy-efficient wideband wireless communication scheme that uses human body as a transmission medium, the transceiver can achieve a maximum 15 Mbps data rate with total receiver sensitivity of -30 dBm. The chip measures only 0.56 mm(2) and was fabricated in the SMIC 0.18um 1P6M RF CMOS process. The RX consumes 5mW and TX dissipates 1mW with delivering power up to 10uW, which is suitable for the body area network short range application. Real-time medical information collecting through the human body is fully simulated. Architecture of the chip together with the detail characterizes from its wireless analog front-end are presented.

Steady-state visually evoked potential correlates of human body perception.

PubMed

Giabbiconi, Claire-Marie; Jurilj, Verena; Gruber, Thomas; Vocks, Silja

2016-11-01

In cognitive neuroscience, interest in the neuronal basis underlying the processing of human bodies is steadily increasing. Based on functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, it is assumed that the processing of pictures of human bodies is anchored in a network of specialized brain areas comprising the extrastriate and the fusiform body area (EBA, FBA). An alternative to examine the dynamics within these networks is electroencephalography, more specifically so-called steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs). In SSVEP tasks, a visual stimulus is presented repetitively at a predefined flickering rate and typically elicits a continuous oscillatory brain response at this frequency. This brain response is characterized by an excellent signal-to-noise ratio-a major advantage for source reconstructions. The main goal of present study was to demonstrate the feasibility of this method to study human body perception. To that end, we presented pictures of bodies and contrasted the resulting SSVEPs to two control conditions, i.e., non-objects and pictures of everyday objects (chairs). We found specific SSVEPs amplitude differences between bodies and both control conditions. Source reconstructions localized the SSVEP generators to a network of temporal, occipital and parietal areas. Interestingly, only body perception resulted in activity differences in middle temporal and lateral occipitotemporal areas, most likely reflecting the EBA/FBA.

Wearable ECG Based on Impulse-Radio-Type Human Body Communication.

PubMed

Wang, Jianqing; Fujiwara, Takuya; Kato, Taku; Anzai, Daisuke

2016-09-01

Human body communication (HBC) provides a promising physical layer for wireless body area networks (BANs) in healthcare and medical applications, because of its low propagation loss and high security characteristics. In this study, we have developed a wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) which employs impulse radio (IR)-type HBC technology for transmitting vital signals on the human body in a wearable BAN scenario. The HBC-based wearable ECG has two excellent features. First, the wideband performance of the IR scheme contributed to very low radiation power so that the transceiver is easy to satisfy the extremely weak radio laws, which does not need a license. This feature can provide big convenience in the use and spread of the wearable ECG. Second, the realization of common use of sensing and transmitting electrodes based on time sharing and capacitive coupling largely simplified the HBC-based ECG structure and contributed to its miniaturization. To verify the validity of the HBC-based ECG, we evaluated its communication performance and ECG acquisition performance. The measured bit error rate, smaller than 10 -3 at 1.25 Mb/s, showed a good physical layer communication performance, and the acquired ECG waveform and various heart-rate variability parameters in time and frequency domains exhibited good agreement with a commercially available radio-frequency ECG and a Holter ECG. These results sufficiently showed the validity and feasibility of the HBC-based ECG for healthcare applications. This should be the first time to have realized a real-time ECG transmission by using the HBC technology.

Identification of compounds inhibiting the C-S lyase activity of a cell extract from a Staphylococcus sp. isolated from human skin.

PubMed

Egert, M; Höhne, H-M; Weber, T; Simmering, R; Banowski, B; Breves, R

2013-12-01

The C-S lyase activity of bacteria in the human armpit releases highly malodorous, volatile sulfur compounds from nonvolatile precursor molecules. Such compounds significantly contribute to human body odour. Hence, C-S lyase represents an attractive target for anti-body-odour cosmetic products. Here, aiming at a final use in an ethanol-based deodorant formulation, 267 compounds and compound mixtures were screened for their ability to inhibit the C-S lyase activity of a Stapyhlococcus sp. crude extract. Staphylococcus sp. Isolate 128, closely related to Staphylococcus hominis, was chosen as the test bacterium, as it showed a reproducibly high specific C-S lyase activity on three different culturing media. Using a photometric assay and benzylcysteine as substrate, six rather complex, plant-derived compound mixtures and five well defined chemical compounds or compound mixtures were identified as inhibitors, leading to an inhibition of ≥70% at concentrations of ≤0·5% in the assay. The inhibition data have demonstrated that compounds with two vicinal hydroxyl groups or one hydroxyl and one keto group bound to an aryl residue are characteristic for the inhibition. The substances identified as C-S lyase inhibitors have the potential to improve the performance of anti-body-odour cosmetic products, for example, ethanol-based deodorants. Bacterial C-S lyase represents one of the key enzymes involved in human body odour formation. The aim of this study was to identify compounds inhibiting the C-S lyase activity of a Staphylococcus sp. isolate from the human skin. The compounds identified as the best inhibitors are characterized by the following features: two vicinal hydroxyl groups or one hydroxyl and one keto group bound to an aryl residue. They might be used to improve the performance of cosmetic products aiming to prevent the formation of microbially caused human body odour, for example, ethanol-based deodorants. © 2013 The Society for Applied Microbiology.

Antenna modeling considerations for accurate SAR calculations in human phantoms in close proximity to GSM cellular base station antennas.

PubMed

van Wyk, Marnus J; Bingle, Marianne; Meyer, Frans J C

2005-09-01

International bodies such as International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) and the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IEEE) make provision for human exposure assessment based on SAR calculations (or measurements) and basic restrictions. In the case of base station exposure this is mostly applicable to occupational exposure scenarios in the very near field of these antennas where the conservative reference level criteria could be unnecessarily restrictive. This study presents a variety of critical aspects that need to be considered when calculating SAR in a human body close to a mobile phone base station antenna. A hybrid FEM/MoM technique is proposed as a suitable numerical method to obtain accurate results. The verification of the FEM/MoM implementation has been presented in a previous publication; the focus of this study is an investigation into the detail that must be included in a numerical model of the antenna, to accurately represent the real-world scenario. This is accomplished by comparing numerical results to measurements for a generic GSM base station antenna and appropriate, representative canonical and human phantoms. The results show that it is critical to take the disturbance effect of the human phantom (a large conductive body) on the base station antenna into account when the antenna-phantom spacing is less than 300 mm. For these small spacings, the antenna structure must be modeled in detail. The conclusion is that it is feasible to calculate, using the proposed techniques and methodology, accurate occupational compliance zones around base station antennas based on a SAR profile and basic restriction guidelines. (c) 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Differences in the origin of philosophy between Chinese medicine and Western medicine: Exploration of the holistic advantages of Chinese medicine.

PubMed

Sun, Da-zhi; Li, Shao-dan; Liu, Yi; Zhang, Yin; Mei, Rong; Yang, Ming-hui

2013-09-01

To explore advantages of Chinese medicine (CM) by analyzing differences in the origin of philosophy for human health between CM and Western medicine (WM). Methodologically, a distinctive feature of CM is its systems theory, which is also the difference between CM and WM. Since the birth of CM, it has taken the human body as a whole from the key concepts of "qi, blood, yin-yang, viscera (Zang-Fu), and meridian and channel", rather than a single cell or a particular organ. WM evolves from the Western philosophic way of thinking and merely uses natural sciences as the foundation. The development of WM is based on human structures, or anatomy, and therefore, research of WM is also based on the way of thinking of decomposing the whole human body into several independent parts, which is the impetus of promoting the development of WM. The core of CM includes the holistic view and the dialectical view. Chinese herbal medicines contain various components and treat a disease from multiple targets and links. Therefore, Chinese herbal medicines treat a diseased state by regulating and mobilizing the whole body rather than just regulating a single factor, since the diseased state is not only a problem in a local part of the body but a local reflection of imbalance of the whole body.

Remote monitoring of soldier safety through body posture identification using wearable sensor networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Biswas, Subir; Quwaider, Muhannad

2008-04-01

The physical safety and well being of the soldiers in a battlefield is the highest priority of Incident Commanders. Currently, the ability to track and monitor soldiers rely on visual and verbal communication which can be somewhat limited in scenarios where the soldiers are deployed inside buildings and enclosed areas that are out of visual range of the commanders. Also, the need for being stealth can often prevent a battling soldier to send verbal clues to a commander about his or her physical well being. Sensor technologies can remotely provide various data about the soldiers including physiological monitoring and personal alert safety system functionality. This paper presents a networked sensing solution in which a body area wireless network of multi-modal sensors can monitor the body movement and other physiological parameters for statistical identification of a soldier's body posture, which can then be indicative of the physical conditions and safety alerts of the soldier in question. The specific concept is to leverage on-body proximity sensing and a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) based mechanism that can be applied for stochastic identification of human body postures using a wearable sensor network. The key idea is to collect relative proximity information between wireless sensors that are strategically placed over a subject's body to monitor the relative movements of the body segments, and then to process that using HMM in order to identify the subject's body postures. The key novelty of this approach is a departure from the traditional accelerometry based approaches in which the individual body segment movements, rather than their relative proximity, is used for activity monitoring and posture detection. Through experiments with body mounted sensors we demonstrate that while the accelerometry based approaches can be used for differentiating activity intensive postures such as walking and running, they are not very effective for identification and differentiation between low activity postures such as sitting and standing. We develop a wearable sensor network that monitors relative proximity using Radio Signal Strength indication (RSSI), and then construct a HMM system for posture identification in the presence of sensing errors. Controlled experiments using human subjects were carried out for evaluating the accuracy of the HMM identified postures compared to a naÃve threshold based mechanism, and its variations over different human subjects. A large spectrum of target human postures, including lie down, sit (straight and reclined), stand, walk, run, sprint and stair climbing, are used for validating the proposed system.

On the safety assessment of human exposure in the proximity of cellular communications base-station antennas at 900, 1800 and 2170 MHz.

PubMed

Martínez-Búrdalo, M; Martín, A; Anguiano, M; Villar, R

2005-09-07

In this work, the procedures for safety assessment in the close proximity of cellular communications base-station antennas at three different frequencies (900, 1800 and 2170 MHz) are analysed. For each operating frequency, we have obtained and compared the distances to the antenna from the exposure places where electromagnetic fields are below reference levels and the distances where the specific absorption rate (SAR) values in an exposed person are below the basic restrictions, according to the European safety guidelines. A high-resolution human body model has been located, in front of each base-station antenna as a worst case, at different distances, to compute whole body averaged SAR and maximum 10 g averaged SAR inside the exposed body. The finite-difference time-domain method has been used for both electromagnetic fields and SAR calculations. This paper shows that, for antenna-body distances in the near zone of the antenna, the fact that averaged field values be below the reference levels could, at certain frequencies, not guarantee guidelines compliance based on basic restrictions.

Dynamical simulation priors for human motion tracking.

PubMed

Vondrak, Marek; Sigal, Leonid; Jenkins, Odest Chadwicke

2013-01-01

We propose a simulation-based dynamical motion prior for tracking human motion from video in presence of physical ground-person interactions. Most tracking approaches to date have focused on efficient inference algorithms and/or learning of prior kinematic motion models; however, few can explicitly account for the physical plausibility of recovered motion. Here, we aim to recover physically plausible motion of a single articulated human subject. Toward this end, we propose a full-body 3D physical simulation-based prior that explicitly incorporates a model of human dynamics into the Bayesian filtering framework. We consider the motion of the subject to be generated by a feedback “control loop” in which Newtonian physics approximates the rigid-body motion dynamics of the human and the environment through the application and integration of interaction forces, motor forces, and gravity. Interaction forces prevent physically impossible hypotheses, enable more appropriate reactions to the environment (e.g., ground contacts), and are produced from detected human-environment collisions. Motor forces actuate the body, ensure that proposed pose transitions are physically feasible, and are generated using a motion controller. For efficient inference in the resulting high-dimensional state space, we utilize an exemplar-based control strategy that reduces the effective search space of motor forces. As a result, we are able to recover physically plausible motion of human subjects from monocular and multiview video. We show, both quantitatively and qualitatively, that our approach performs favorably with respect to Bayesian filtering methods with standard motion priors.

How to pass information and deliver energy to a network of implantable devices within the human body.

PubMed

Sun, Mingui; Hackworth, Steven A; Tang, Zhide; Gilbert, Gary; Cardin, Sylvain; Sclabassi, Robert J

2007-01-01

It has been envisioned that a body network can be built to collect data from, and transport information to, implanted miniature devices at multiple sites within the human body. Currently, two problems of utmost importance remain unsolved: 1) how to link information between a pair of implants at a distance? and 2) how to provide electric power to these implants allowing them to function and communicate? In this paper, we present new solutions to these problems by minimizing the intra-body communication distances. We show that, based on a study of human anatomy, the maximum distance from the body surface to the deepest point inside the body is approximately 15 cm. This finding provides an upper bound for the lengths of communication pathways required to reach the body's interior. We also show that these pathways do not have to cross any joins within the body. In order to implement the envisioned body network, we present the design of a new device, called an energy pad. This small-size, light-weight device can easily interface with the skin to perform data communication with, and supply power to, miniature implants.

A cross-species translational pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic evaluation of core body temperature reduction by the TRPM8 blocker PF-05105679.

PubMed

Gosset, James R; Beaumont, Kevin; Matsuura, Tomomi; Winchester, Wendy; Attkins, Neil; Glatt, Sophie; Lightbown, Ian; Ulrich, Kristina; Roberts, Sonia; Harris, Jolie; Mesic, Emir; van Steeg, Tamara; Hijdra, Diana; van der Graaf, Piet H

2017-11-15

PF-05105679 is a moderately potent TRPM8 blocker which has been evaluated for the treatment of cold pain sensitivity. The TRPM8 channel is responsible for the sensation of cold environmental temperatures and has been implicated in regulation of core body temperature. Consequently, blockade of TRPM8 has been suggested to result in lowering of core body temperature. As part of the progression to human studies, the effect of PF-05105679 on core body temperature has been investigated in animals. Safety pharmacology studies showed that PF-05105679 reduced core body temperature in a manner that was inversely related to body weight of the species tested (greater exposure to PF-05105679 was required to lower temperature by 1°C in higher species). Based on an allometric (body weight) relationship, it was hypothesized that PF-05105679 would not lower core body temperature in humans at exposures that could exhibit pharmacological effects on cold pain sensation. On administration to humans, PF-05105679 was indeed effective at reversing the cold pain sensation associated with the cold pressor test in the absence of effects on core body temperature. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Prediction of brain tissue temperature using near-infrared spectroscopy.

PubMed

Holper, Lisa; Mitra, Subhabrata; Bale, Gemma; Robertson, Nicola; Tachtsidis, Ilias

2017-04-01

Broadband near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) can provide an endogenous indicator of tissue temperature based on the temperature dependence of the water absorption spectrum. We describe a first evaluation of the calibration and prediction of brain tissue temperature obtained during hypothermia in newborn piglets (animal dataset) and rewarming in newborn infants (human dataset) based on measured body (rectal) temperature. The calibration using partial least squares regression proved to be a reliable method to predict brain tissue temperature with respect to core body temperature in the wavelength interval of 720 to 880 nm with a strong mean predictive power of [Formula: see text] (animal dataset) and [Formula: see text] (human dataset). In addition, we applied regression receiver operating characteristic curves for the first time to evaluate the temperature prediction, which provided an overall mean error bias between NIRS predicted brain temperature and body temperature of [Formula: see text] (animal dataset) and [Formula: see text] (human dataset). We discuss main methodological aspects, particularly the well-known aspect of over- versus underestimation between brain and body temperature, which is relevant for potential clinical applications.

Identification and annotation of erotic film based on content analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Donghui; Zhu, Miaoliang; Yuan, Xin; Qian, Hui

2005-02-01

The paper brings forward a new method for identifying and annotating erotic films based on content analysis. First, the film is decomposed to video and audio stream. Then, the video stream is segmented into shots and key frames are extracted from each shot. We filter the shots that include potential erotic content by finding the nude human body in key frames. A Gaussian model in YCbCr color space for detecting skin region is presented. An external polygon that covered the skin regions is used for the approximation of the human body. Last, we give the degree of the nudity by calculating the ratio of skin area to whole body area with weighted parameters. The result of the experiment shows the effectiveness of our method.

Noninvasive oxygen partial pressure measurement of human body fluids in vivo using magnetic resonance imaging.

PubMed

Zaharchuk, Greg; Busse, Reed F; Rosenthal, Guy; Manley, Geoffery T; Glenn, Orit A; Dillon, William P

2006-08-01

The oxygen partial pressure (pO2) of human body fluids reflects the oxygenation status of surrounding tissues. All existing fluid pO2 measurements are invasive, requiring either microelectrode/optode placement or fluid removal. The purpose of this study is to develop a noninvasive magnetic resonance imaging method to measure the pO2 of human body fluids. We developed an imaging paradigm that exploits the paramagnetism of molecular oxygen to create quantitative images of fluid oxygenation. A single-shot fast spin echo pulse sequence was modified to minimize artifacts from motion, fluid flow, and partial volume. Longitudinal relaxation rate (R1 = 1/T1) was measured with a time-efficient nonequilibrium saturation recovery method and correlated with pO2 measured in phantoms. pO2 images of human and fetal cerebrospinal fluid, bladder urine, and vitreous humor are presented and quantitative oxygenation levels are compared with prior literature estimates, where available. Significant pO2 increases are shown in cerebrospinal fluid and vitreous following 100% oxygen inhalation. Potential errors due to temperature, fluid flow, and partial volume are discussed. Noninvasive measurements of human body fluid pO2 in vivo are presented, which yield reasonable values based on prior literature estimates. This rapid imaging-based measurement of fluid oxygenation may provide insight into normal physiology as well as changes due to disease or during treatment.

Combined Volatolomics for Monitoring of Human Body Chemistry

PubMed Central

Broza, Yoav Y.; Zuri, Liat; Haick, Hossam

2014-01-01

Analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is a promising approach for non-invasive, fast and potentially inexpensive diagnostics. Here, we present a new methodology for profiling the body chemistry by using the volatile fraction of molecules in various body fluids. Using mass spectrometry and cross-reactive nanomaterial-based sensors array, we demonstrate that simultaneous VOC detection from breath and skin would provide complementary, non-correlated information of the body's volatile metabolites profile. Eventually with further wide population validation studies, such a methodology could provide more accurate monitoring of pathological changes compared to the information provided by a single body fluid. The qualitative and quantitative methods presented here offers a variety of options for novel mapping of the metabolic properties of complex organisms, including humans. PMID:24714440

Combined volatolomics for monitoring of human body chemistry.

PubMed

Broza, Yoav Y; Zuri, Liat; Haick, Hossam

2014-04-09

Analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is a promising approach for non-invasive, fast and potentially inexpensive diagnostics. Here, we present a new methodology for profiling the body chemistry by using the volatile fraction of molecules in various body fluids. Using mass spectrometry and cross-reactive nanomaterial-based sensors array, we demonstrate that simultaneous VOC detection from breath and skin would provide complementary, non-correlated information of the body's volatile metabolites profile. Eventually with further wide population validation studies, such a methodology could provide more accurate monitoring of pathological changes compared to the information provided by a single body fluid. The qualitative and quantitative methods presented here offers a variety of options for novel mapping of the metabolic properties of complex organisms, including humans.

Recruiting Human Microbiome Shotgun Data to Site-Specific Reference Genomes

PubMed Central

Xie, Gary; Lo, Chien-Chi; Scholz, Matthew; Chain, Patrick S. G.

2014-01-01

The human body consists of innumerable multifaceted environments that predispose colonization by a number of distinct microbial communities, which play fundamental roles in human health and disease. In addition to community surveys and shotgun metagenomes that seek to explore the composition and diversity of these microbiomes, there are significant efforts to sequence reference microbial genomes from many body sites of healthy adults. To illustrate the utility of reference genomes when studying more complex metagenomes, we present a reference-based analysis of sequence reads generated from 55 shotgun metagenomes, selected from 5 major body sites, including 16 sub-sites. Interestingly, between 13% and 92% (62.3% average) of these shotgun reads were aligned to a then-complete list of 2780 reference genomes, including 1583 references for the human microbiome. However, no reference genome was universally found in all body sites. For any given metagenome, the body site-specific reference genomes, derived from the same body site as the sample, accounted for an average of 58.8% of the mapped reads. While different body sites did differ in abundant genera, proximal or symmetrical body sites were found to be most similar to one another. The extent of variation observed, both between individuals sampled within the same microenvironment, or at the same site within the same individual over time, calls into question comparative studies across individuals even if sampled at the same body site. This study illustrates the high utility of reference genomes and the need for further site-specific reference microbial genome sequencing, even within the already well-sampled human microbiome. PMID:24454771

The morphology of human hyoid bone in relation to sex, age and body proportions.

PubMed

Urbanová, P; Hejna, P; Zátopková, L; Šafr, M

2013-06-01

Morphological aspects of the human hyoid bone are, like many other skeletal elements in human body, greatly affected by individual's sex, age and body proportions. Still, the known sex-dependent bimodality of a number of body size characteristics overshadows the true within-group patterns. Given the ambiguity of the causal effects of age, sex and body size upon hyoid morphology the present study puts the relationship between shape of human hyoid bone and body proportions (height and weight) under scrutiny of a morphological study. Using 211 hyoid bones and landmark-based methods of geometric morphometrics, it was shown that the size of hyoid bones correlated positively with measured body dimensions but showed no correlation if the individual's sex was controlled for. For shape variables, our results revealed that hyoid morphology is clearly related to body size as expressed in terms of the height and weight. Yet, the hyoid shape was shown to result primarily from the sex-related bimodal distribution of studied body size descriptors which, in the case of the height-dependent model, exhibited opposite trends for males and females. Apart from the global hyoid shape given by spatial arrangements of the greater horns, body size dependency was translated into size and position of the hyoid body. None of the body size characters had any impact on hyoid asymmetry. Ultimately, sexually dimorphic variation was revealed for age-dependent changes in both size and shape of hyoid bones as male hyoids tend to be more susceptible to modifications with age than female bones. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

What's in a name: the taxonomic status of human head and body lice.

PubMed

Light, Jessica E; Toups, Melissa A; Reed, David L

2008-06-01

Human head lice (Anoplura: Pediculidae: Pediculus) are pandemic, parasitizing countless school children worldwide due to the evolution of insecticide resistance, and human body (clothing) lice are responsible for the deaths of millions as a result of vectoring several deadly bacterial pathogens. Despite the obvious impact these lice have had on their human hosts, it is unclear whether head and body lice represent two morphological forms of a single species or two distinct species. To assess the taxonomic status of head and body lice, we provide a synthesis of publicly available molecular data in GenBank, and we compare phylogenetic and population genetic methods using the most diverse geographic and molecular sampling presently available. Our analyses find reticulated networks, gene flow, and a lack of reciprocal monophyly, all of which indicate that head and body lice do not represent genetically distinct evolutionary units. Based on these findings, as well as inconsistencies of morphological, behavioral, and ecological variability between head and body lice, we contend that no known species concept would recognize these louse morphotypes as separate species. We recommend recognizing head and body lice as morphotypes of a single species, Pediculus humanus, until compelling new data and analyses (preferably analyses of fast evolving nuclear markers in a coalescent framework) indicate otherwise.

A Novel Field-Circuit FEM Modeling and Channel Gain Estimation for Galvanic Coupling Real IBC Measurements.

PubMed

Gao, Yue-Ming; Wu, Zhu-Mei; Pun, Sio-Hang; Mak, Peng-Un; Vai, Mang-I; Du, Min

2016-04-02

Existing research on human channel modeling of galvanic coupling intra-body communication (IBC) is primarily focused on the human body itself. Although galvanic coupling IBC is less disturbed by external influences during signal transmission, there are inevitable factors in real measurement scenarios such as the parasitic impedance of electrodes, impedance matching of the transceiver, etc. which might lead to deviations between the human model and the in vivo measurements. This paper proposes a field-circuit finite element method (FEM) model of galvanic coupling IBC in a real measurement environment to estimate the human channel gain. First an anisotropic concentric cylinder model of the electric field intra-body communication for human limbs was developed based on the galvanic method. Then the electric field model was combined with several impedance elements, which were equivalent in terms of parasitic impedance of the electrodes, input and output impedance of the transceiver, establishing a field-circuit FEM model. The results indicated that a circuit module equivalent to external factors can be added to the field-circuit model, which makes this model more complete, and the estimations based on the proposed field-circuit are in better agreement with the corresponding measurement results.

Mat-like flexible thermoelectric system based on rigid inorganic bulk materials

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Park, Hwanjoo; Kim, Donggyu; Eom, Yoomin; Wijethunge, Dimuthu; Hwang, Junphil; Kim, Hoon; Kim, Woochul

2017-12-01

This paper reports on a mat-like flexible thermoelectric system (FTES) based on rigid inorganic bulk materials, i.e. Bi-Te compounds. Inorganic bulk materials exhibit higher thermoelectric performance and can create a larger temperature drop due to their considerable height compared with organics and printable inorganics, meaning the FTES can produce an impressive power output. We show that the FTES, wherein both a thermoelectric module and a heat sink are integrated, is flexible enough to be adapted to any irregularly shaped surface. In the FTES, p- and n-type legs composed of a thermoelectric module are placed inside holders, which are connected to one another using flexible wires. Powered by a portable battery, the FTES was used to refrigerate human skin. As a result, a temperature drop of approximately 4 K was experimentally demonstrated, which humans felt as ‘cold’ or ‘very cold’, based on analysis. This indicates the feasibility of using the proposed FTES to control the temperature of the human body, even when using a portable battery. This was also applied to body heat harvesting. The FTES generated approximately 88 µW of power, which is sufficient to operate most wearable and/or implantable sensors. Our analysis based on human thermoregulatory modeling indicates that both refrigeration and power generation capacity can be further enhanced by improving the thermal contact between the FTES and human skin. The FTES shows potential for wearable refrigeration and body heat harvesting.

Evidence from mitochondrial DNA that head lice and body lice of humans (Phthiraptera: Pediculidae) are conspecific.

PubMed

Leo, N P; Campbell, N J H; Yang, X; Mumcuoglu, K; Barker, S C

2002-07-01

The specific status of the head and body lice of humans has been debated for more than 200 yr. To clarify the specific status of head and body lice, we sequenced 524 base pairs (bp) of the cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene of 28 head and 28 body lice from nine countries. Ten haplotypes that differed by 1-5 bp at 11 nucleotide positions were identified. A phylogeny of these sequences indicates that these head and body lice are not from reciprocally monophyletic lineages. Indeed, head and body lice share three of the 10 haplotypes we found. F(ST) values and exact tests of haplotype frequencies showed significant differences between head and body lice. However, the same tests also showed significant differences among lice from different countries. Indeed, more of the variation in haplotype frequencies was explained by differences among lice from different countries than by differences between head and body lice. Our results indicate the following: (1) head and body lice do not represent reciprocally monophyletic lineages and are conspecific; (2) gene flow among populations of lice from different countries is limited; and (3) frequencies of COI haplotypes can be used to study maternal gene flow among populations of head and body lice and thus transmission of lice among their human hosts.

[New methods for determining the relative load due to physical effort of the human body].

PubMed

Szubert, Józef; Szubert, Sławomir; Koszada-Włodarczyk, Wiesława; Bortkiewicz, Alicja

2014-01-01

The relative physical load (% VO2max) is the quotient of oxygen uptake (Vo2) during physical effort and maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max) by the human body. For this purpose the stress test must be performed. The relative load shows a high correlation with minute ventilation, cardiac output, heart rate, stroke volume, increased concentrations of catecholamines in the blood, inner temperature, weight, height and human body surface area. The relative load is a criterion for the maximum workloads admissible for healthy and sick workers. Besides, the classification of effort can be more precise when based on the relative load than on the energy output. Based on our own and international empirical evidence and the laws of heat transfer and fluid mechanics, a model of temperature control system has been developed, involving the elements of human cardiovascular and respiratory systems. Using this model, we have been able to develop our own methods of determining the relative load, applying only the body core temperature (Tw) or heart rate within one minute (HR), body mass (m), height (H), and body surface area (AD) instead of VO,max. The values of the relative physical load (% VO2max) obtained by using our own methods do not differ significantly from those obtained by other methods and by other researchers. The developed methods for determining the relative physical load (% VO2max) do not require the exercise test to be performed, therefore, they may be considered (after verification in an experimental study) a feasible alternative to current methods.

Toddlers' categorization of typical and scrambled dolls and cars.

PubMed

Heron, Michelle; Slaughter, Virginia

2008-09-01

Previous research has demonstrated discrimination of scrambled from typical human body shapes at 15-18 months of age [Slaughter, V., & Heron, M. (2004). Origins and early development of human body knowledge. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 69]. In the current study 18-, 24- and 30-month-old infants were presented with four typical and four scrambled dolls in a sequential touching procedure, to assess the development of explicit categorization of human body shapes. Infants were also presented with typical and scrambled cars, allowing comparison of infants' categorization of scrambled and typical exemplars in a different domain. Spontaneous comments regarding category membership were recorded. Girls categorized dolls and cars as typical or scrambled at 30 months, whereas boys only categorized the cars. Earliest categorization was for typical and scrambled cars, at 24 months, but only for boys. Language-based knowledge, coded from infants' comments, followed the same pattern. This suggests that human body knowledge does not have privileged status in infancy. Gender differences in performance are discussed.

Human balance, the evolution of bipedalism and dysequilibrium syndrome.

PubMed

Skoyles, John R

2006-01-01

A new model of the uniqueness, nature and evolution of human bipedality is presented in the context of the etiology of the balance disorder of dysequilibrium syndrome. Human bipedality is biologically novel in several remarkable respects. Humans are (a) obligate, habitual and diverse in their bipedalism, (b) hold their body carriage spinally erect in a multisegmental "antigravity pole", (c) use their forelimbs exclusively for nonlocomotion, (d) support their body weight exclusively by vertical balance and normally never use prehensile holds. Further, human bipedalism is combined with (e) upper body actions that quickly shift the body's center of mass (e.g. tennis serves, piggy-back carrying of children), (f) use transient unstable erect positions (dance, kicking and fighting), (g) body height that makes falls injurious, (h) stiff gait walking, and (i) endurance running. Underlying these novelties, I conjecture, is a species specific human vertical balance faculty. This faculty synchronizes any action with a skeletomuscular adjustment that corrects its potential destabilizing impact upon the projection of the body's center of mass over its foot support. The balance faculty depends upon internal models of the erect vertical body's geometrical relationship (and its deviations) to its support base. Due to the situation that humans are obligate erect terrestrial animals, two frameworks - the body- and gravity-defined frameworks - are in constant alignment in the vertical z-axis. This alignment allows human balance to adapt egocentric body cognitions to detect body deviations from the gravitational vertical. This link between human balance and the processing of geometrical orientation, I propose, accounts for the close link between balance and spatial cognition found in the cerebral cortex. I argue that cortical areas processing the spatial and other cognitions needed to enable vertical balance was an important reason for brain size expansion of Homo erectus. A novel source of evidence for this conjecture is the rare autosomal recessive condition of dysequilibrium syndrome. In dysequilibrium syndrome, individuals fail to learn to walk bipedally (with this not being due to sensory, vestibular nor motor coordination defects). Dysequilibrium syndrome is associated with severe spatial deficits that I conjecture underlie its balance dysfunction. The associated brain defects and gene mutations of dysequilibrium syndrome provide new opportunities to investigate (i) the neurological processes responsible for the human specific balance faculty, and (ii) through gene dating techniques, its evolution.

Delivery of Therapeutic Proteins Using Electrospun Fibers-Recent Developments and Current Challenges.

PubMed

Seif, Salem; Planz, Viktoria; Windbergs, Maike

2017-10-01

Proteins play a vital role within the human body by regulating various functions and even serving as structural constituent of many body parts. In this context, protein-based therapeutics have attracted a lot of attention in the last few decades as potential treatment of different diseases. Due to the steadily increasing interest in protein-based therapeutics, different dosage forms were investigated for delivering such complex macromolecules to the human body. Here, electrospun fibers hold a great potential for embedding proteins without structural damage and for controlled release of the protein for therapeutic applications. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of protein-based carrier systems using electrospun fibers, with special emphasis on discussing their potential and key challenges in developing such therapeutic strategies, along with a prospective view of anticipated future directions. © 2017 Deutsche Pharmazeutische Gesellschaft.

The public display of plastinates as a challenge to the integrity of anatomy.

PubMed

Jones, David Gareth

2016-01-01

Anatomy has been thrust into the public domain by the highly successful public displays of dissected and plastinated human bodies. This is anatomy in modern guise, anatomy as perceived by the general public. If this is the case, the message it is giving the public about the nature of anatomy is that it is an impersonal analysis of the human body of value within a medical and health care environment. While this is in part true, and while it reflects important aspects of anatomy's history, it fails to reflect the humanistic strands within an increasing swathe of contemporary anatomy. These are manifested in growing recognition of the centrality of informed consent in the practice of anatomy, awareness of the personal dimensions and relationships of those whose bodies are being dissected, and manifested in thanksgiving ceremonies involving staff and students. The notion that the bodies undergoing dissection can be students' first teachers and/or patients is gaining ground, another indication of the human dimensions of the anatomical enterprise. Exhibitions such as Body Worlds ignore these dimensions within anatomy by dislocating it from its clinical and relational base. The significance of this is that loss of these dimensions leads to a loss of the human face of anatomy by isolating it from the people whose body bequests made this knowledge possible. What is required is greater transparency and openness in the practices of all who deal with the dead human body, trends that owe much to the writings of scholars from within a range of humanities disciplines as they have responded to the public displays of dissected plastinated bodies. Anatomists have much to learn from these debates. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Design of Secure ECG-Based Biometric Authentication in Body Area Sensor Networks

PubMed Central

Peter, Steffen; Pratap Reddy, Bhanu; Momtaz, Farshad; Givargis, Tony

2016-01-01

Body area sensor networks (BANs) utilize wireless communicating sensor nodes attached to a human body for convenience, safety, and health applications. Physiological characteristics of the body, such as the heart rate or Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals, are promising means to simplify the setup process and to improve security of BANs. This paper describes the design and implementation steps required to realize an ECG-based authentication protocol to identify sensor nodes attached to the same human body. Therefore, the first part of the paper addresses the design of a body-area sensor system, including the hardware setup, analogue and digital signal processing, and required ECG feature detection techniques. A model-based design flow is applied, and strengths and limitations of each design step are discussed. Real-world measured data originating from the implemented sensor system are then used to set up and parametrize a novel physiological authentication protocol for BANs. The authentication protocol utilizes statistical properties of expected and detected deviations to limit the number of false positive and false negative authentication attempts. The result of the described holistic design effort is the first practical implementation of biometric authentication in BANs that reflects timing and data uncertainties in the physical and cyber parts of the system. PMID:27110785

Design of Secure ECG-Based Biometric Authentication in Body Area Sensor Networks.

PubMed

Peter, Steffen; Reddy, Bhanu Pratap; Momtaz, Farshad; Givargis, Tony

2016-04-22

Body area sensor networks (BANs) utilize wireless communicating sensor nodes attached to a human body for convenience, safety, and health applications. Physiological characteristics of the body, such as the heart rate or Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals, are promising means to simplify the setup process and to improve security of BANs. This paper describes the design and implementation steps required to realize an ECG-based authentication protocol to identify sensor nodes attached to the same human body. Therefore, the first part of the paper addresses the design of a body-area sensor system, including the hardware setup, analogue and digital signal processing, and required ECG feature detection techniques. A model-based design flow is applied, and strengths and limitations of each design step are discussed. Real-world measured data originating from the implemented sensor system are then used to set up and parametrize a novel physiological authentication protocol for BANs. The authentication protocol utilizes statistical properties of expected and detected deviations to limit the number of false positive and false negative authentication attempts. The result of the described holistic design effort is the first practical implementation of biometric authentication in BANs that reflects timing and data uncertainties in the physical and cyber parts of the system.

[Chest modelling and automotive accidents].

PubMed

Trosseille, Xavier

2011-11-01

Automobile development is increasingly based on mathematical modeling. Accurate models of the human body are now available and serve to develop new means of protection. These models used to consist of rigid, articulated bodies but are now made of several million finite elements. They are now capable of predicting some risks of injury. To develop these models, sophisticated tests were conducted on human cadavers. For example, chest modeling started with material characterization and led to complete validation in the automobile environment. Model personalization, based on medical imaging, will permit studies of the behavior and tolerances of the entire population.

Coarse-to-fine markerless gait analysis based on PCA and Gauss-Laguerre decomposition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goffredo, Michela; Schmid, Maurizio; Conforto, Silvia; Carli, Marco; Neri, Alessandro; D'Alessio, Tommaso

2005-04-01

Human movement analysis is generally performed through the utilization of marker-based systems, which allow reconstructing, with high levels of accuracy, the trajectories of markers allocated on specific points of the human body. Marker based systems, however, show some drawbacks that can be overcome by the use of video systems applying markerless techniques. In this paper, a specifically designed computer vision technique for the detection and tracking of relevant body points is presented. It is based on the Gauss-Laguerre Decomposition, and a Principal Component Analysis Technique (PCA) is used to circumscribe the region of interest. Results obtained on both synthetic and experimental tests provide significant reduction of the computational costs, with no significant reduction of the tracking accuracy.

Electromagnetic Modeling of Human Body Using High Performance Computing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ng, Cho-Kuen; Beall, Mark; Ge, Lixin; Kim, Sanghoek; Klaas, Ottmar; Poon, Ada

Realistic simulation of electromagnetic wave propagation in the actual human body can expedite the investigation of the phenomenon of harvesting implanted devices using wireless powering coupled from external sources. The parallel electromagnetics code suite ACE3P developed at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is based on the finite element method for high fidelity accelerator simulation, which can be enhanced to model electromagnetic wave propagation in the human body. Starting with a CAD model of a human phantom that is characterized by a number of tissues, a finite element mesh representing the complex geometries of the individual tissues is built for simulation. Employing an optimal power source with a specific pattern of field distribution, the propagation and focusing of electromagnetic waves in the phantom has been demonstrated. Substantial speedup of the simulation is achieved by using multiple compute cores on supercomputers.

Sys-BodyFluid: a systematical database for human body fluid proteome research

PubMed Central

Li, Su-Jun; Peng, Mao; Li, Hong; Liu, Bo-Shu; Wang, Chuan; Wu, Jia-Rui; Li, Yi-Xue; Zeng, Rong

2009-01-01

Recently, body fluids have widely become an important target for proteomic research and proteomic study has produced more and more body fluid related protein data. A database is needed to collect and analyze these proteome data. Thus, we developed this web-based body fluid proteome database Sys-BodyFluid. It contains eleven kinds of body fluid proteomes, including plasma/serum, urine, cerebrospinal fluid, saliva, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, synovial fluid, nipple aspirate fluid, tear fluid, seminal fluid, human milk and amniotic fluid. Over 10 000 proteins are presented in the Sys-BodyFluid. Sys-BodyFluid provides the detailed protein annotations, including protein description, Gene Ontology, domain information, protein sequence and involved pathways. These proteome data can be retrieved by using protein name, protein accession number and sequence similarity. In addition, users can query between these different body fluids to get the different proteins identification information. Sys-BodyFluid database can facilitate the body fluid proteomics and disease proteomics research as a reference database. It is available at http://www.biosino.org/bodyfluid/. PMID:18978022

Sys-BodyFluid: a systematical database for human body fluid proteome research.

PubMed

Li, Su-Jun; Peng, Mao; Li, Hong; Liu, Bo-Shu; Wang, Chuan; Wu, Jia-Rui; Li, Yi-Xue; Zeng, Rong

2009-01-01

Recently, body fluids have widely become an important target for proteomic research and proteomic study has produced more and more body fluid related protein data. A database is needed to collect and analyze these proteome data. Thus, we developed this web-based body fluid proteome database Sys-BodyFluid. It contains eleven kinds of body fluid proteomes, including plasma/serum, urine, cerebrospinal fluid, saliva, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, synovial fluid, nipple aspirate fluid, tear fluid, seminal fluid, human milk and amniotic fluid. Over 10,000 proteins are presented in the Sys-BodyFluid. Sys-BodyFluid provides the detailed protein annotations, including protein description, Gene Ontology, domain information, protein sequence and involved pathways. These proteome data can be retrieved by using protein name, protein accession number and sequence similarity. In addition, users can query between these different body fluids to get the different proteins identification information. Sys-BodyFluid database can facilitate the body fluid proteomics and disease proteomics research as a reference database. It is available at http://www.biosino.org/bodyfluid/.

21 CFR 801.3 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-04-01

... a surgically or naturally formed cavity of the human body. A device is regarded as an implantable... FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (CONTINUED) MEDICAL DEVICES... use. Human cells, tissues, or cellular or tissue-based product (HCT/P) regulated as a device means an...

Acid-base homeostasis in the human system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

White, R. J.

1974-01-01

Acid-base regulation is a cooperative phenomena in vivo with body fluids, extracellular and intracellular buffers, lungs, and kidneys all playing important roles. The present account is much too brief to be considered a review of present knowledge of these regulatory systems, and should be viewed, instead, as a guide to the elements necessary to construct a simple model of the mutual interactions of the acid-base regulatory systems of the body.

Brain-machine interfacing control of whole-body humanoid motion

PubMed Central

Bouyarmane, Karim; Vaillant, Joris; Sugimoto, Norikazu; Keith, François; Furukawa, Jun-ichiro; Morimoto, Jun

2014-01-01

We propose to tackle in this paper the problem of controlling whole-body humanoid robot behavior through non-invasive brain-machine interfacing (BMI), motivated by the perspective of mapping human motor control strategies to human-like mechanical avatar. Our solution is based on the adequate reduction of the controllable dimensionality of a high-DOF humanoid motion in line with the state-of-the-art possibilities of non-invasive BMI technologies, leaving the complement subspace part of the motion to be planned and executed by an autonomous humanoid whole-body motion planning and control framework. The results are shown in full physics-based simulation of a 36-degree-of-freedom humanoid motion controlled by a user through EEG-extracted brain signals generated with motor imagery task. PMID:25140134

Enhanced Gender Recognition System Using an Improved Histogram of Oriented Gradient (HOG) Feature from Quality Assessment of Visible Light and Thermal Images of the Human Body.

PubMed

Nguyen, Dat Tien; Park, Kang Ryoung

2016-07-21

With higher demand from users, surveillance systems are currently being designed to provide more information about the observed scene, such as the appearance of objects, types of objects, and other information extracted from detected objects. Although the recognition of gender of an observed human can be easily performed using human perception, it remains a difficult task when using computer vision system images. In this paper, we propose a new human gender recognition method that can be applied to surveillance systems based on quality assessment of human areas in visible light and thermal camera images. Our research is novel in the following two ways: First, we utilize the combination of visible light and thermal images of the human body for a recognition task based on quality assessment. We propose a quality measurement method to assess the quality of image regions so as to remove the effects of background regions in the recognition system. Second, by combining the features extracted using the histogram of oriented gradient (HOG) method and the measured qualities of image regions, we form a new image features, called the weighted HOG (wHOG), which is used for efficient gender recognition. Experimental results show that our method produces more accurate estimation results than the state-of-the-art recognition method that uses human body images.

Enhanced Gender Recognition System Using an Improved Histogram of Oriented Gradient (HOG) Feature from Quality Assessment of Visible Light and Thermal Images of the Human Body

PubMed Central

Nguyen, Dat Tien; Park, Kang Ryoung

2016-01-01

With higher demand from users, surveillance systems are currently being designed to provide more information about the observed scene, such as the appearance of objects, types of objects, and other information extracted from detected objects. Although the recognition of gender of an observed human can be easily performed using human perception, it remains a difficult task when using computer vision system images. In this paper, we propose a new human gender recognition method that can be applied to surveillance systems based on quality assessment of human areas in visible light and thermal camera images. Our research is novel in the following two ways: First, we utilize the combination of visible light and thermal images of the human body for a recognition task based on quality assessment. We propose a quality measurement method to assess the quality of image regions so as to remove the effects of background regions in the recognition system. Second, by combining the features extracted using the histogram of oriented gradient (HOG) method and the measured qualities of image regions, we form a new image features, called the weighted HOG (wHOG), which is used for efficient gender recognition. Experimental results show that our method produces more accurate estimation results than the state-of-the-art recognition method that uses human body images. PMID:27455264

Investigating the effects of external fields polarization on the coupling of pure magnetic waves in the human body in very low frequencies

PubMed Central

2007-01-01

In this paper we studied the effects of external fields' polarization on the coupling of pure magnetic fields into human body. Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method is used to calculate the current densities induced in a 1 cm resolution anatomically based model with proper tissue conductivities. Twenty different tissues have been considered in this investigation and scaled FDTD technique is used to convert the results of computer code run in 15 MHz to low frequencies which are encountered in the vicinity of industrial induction heating and melting devices. It has been found that external magnetic field's orientation due to human body has a pronounced impact on the level of induced currents in different body tissues. This may potentially help developing protecting strategies to mitigate the situations in which workers are exposed to high levels of external magnetic radiation. PMID:17504520

Medical Sequencing at the extremes of Human Body Mass

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ahituv, Nadav; Kavaslar, Nihan; Schackwitz, Wendy

2006-09-01

Body weight is a quantitative trait with significantheritability in humans. To identify potential genetic contributors tothis phenotype, we resequenced the coding exons and splice junctions of58 genes in 379 obese and 378 lean individuals. Our 96Mb survey included21 genes associated with monogenic forms of obesity in humans or mice, aswell as 37 genes that function in body weight-related pathways. We foundthat the monogenic obesity-associated gene group was enriched for rarenonsynonymous variants unique to the obese (n=46) versus lean (n=26)populations. Computational analysis further predicted a significantlygreater fraction of deleterious variants within the obese cohort.Consistent with the complex inheritance of body weight,more » we did notobserve obvious familial segregation in the majority of the 28 availablekindreds. Taken together, these data suggest that multiple rare alleleswith variable penetrance contribute to obesity in the population andprovide a deep medical sequencing based approach to detectthem.« less

Human Pose Estimation from Monocular Images: A Comprehensive Survey

PubMed Central

Gong, Wenjuan; Zhang, Xuena; Gonzàlez, Jordi; Sobral, Andrews; Bouwmans, Thierry; Tu, Changhe; Zahzah, El-hadi

2016-01-01

Human pose estimation refers to the estimation of the location of body parts and how they are connected in an image. Human pose estimation from monocular images has wide applications (e.g., image indexing). Several surveys on human pose estimation can be found in the literature, but they focus on a certain category; for example, model-based approaches or human motion analysis, etc. As far as we know, an overall review of this problem domain has yet to be provided. Furthermore, recent advancements based on deep learning have brought novel algorithms for this problem. In this paper, a comprehensive survey of human pose estimation from monocular images is carried out including milestone works and recent advancements. Based on one standard pipeline for the solution of computer vision problems, this survey splits the problem into several modules: feature extraction and description, human body models, and modeling methods. Problem modeling methods are approached based on two means of categorization in this survey. One way to categorize includes top-down and bottom-up methods, and another way includes generative and discriminative methods. Considering the fact that one direct application of human pose estimation is to provide initialization for automatic video surveillance, there are additional sections for motion-related methods in all modules: motion features, motion models, and motion-based methods. Finally, the paper also collects 26 publicly available data sets for validation and provides error measurement methods that are frequently used. PMID:27898003

Prediction of brain tissue temperature using near-infrared spectroscopy

PubMed Central

Holper, Lisa; Mitra, Subhabrata; Bale, Gemma; Robertson, Nicola; Tachtsidis, Ilias

2017-01-01

Abstract. Broadband near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) can provide an endogenous indicator of tissue temperature based on the temperature dependence of the water absorption spectrum. We describe a first evaluation of the calibration and prediction of brain tissue temperature obtained during hypothermia in newborn piglets (animal dataset) and rewarming in newborn infants (human dataset) based on measured body (rectal) temperature. The calibration using partial least squares regression proved to be a reliable method to predict brain tissue temperature with respect to core body temperature in the wavelength interval of 720 to 880 nm with a strong mean predictive power of R2=0.713±0.157 (animal dataset) and R2=0.798±0.087 (human dataset). In addition, we applied regression receiver operating characteristic curves for the first time to evaluate the temperature prediction, which provided an overall mean error bias between NIRS predicted brain temperature and body temperature of 0.436±0.283°C (animal dataset) and 0.162±0.149°C (human dataset). We discuss main methodological aspects, particularly the well-known aspect of over- versus underestimation between brain and body temperature, which is relevant for potential clinical applications. PMID:28630878

Measured body composition and geometrical data of four ``virtual family'' members for thermoregulatory modeling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Xiaojiang; Rioux, Timothy P.; MacLeod, Tynan; Patel, Tejash; Rome, Maxwell N.; Potter, Adam W.

2017-03-01

The purpose of this paper is to develop a database of tissue composition, distribution, volume, surface area, and skin thickness from anatomically correct human models, the virtual family. These models were based on high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of human volunteers, including two adults (male and female) and two children (boy and girl). In the segmented image dataset, each voxel is associated with a label which refers to a tissue type that occupies up that specific cubic millimeter of the body. The tissue volume was calculated from the number of the voxels with the same label. Volumes of 24 organs in body and volumes of 7 tissues in 10 specific body regions were calculated. Surface area was calculated from the collection of voxels that are touching the exterior air. Skin thicknesses were estimated from its volume and surface area. The differences between the calculated and original masses were about 3 % or less for tissues or organs that are important to thermoregulatory modeling, e.g., muscle, skin, and fat. This accurate database of body tissue distributions and geometry is essential for the development of human thermoregulatory models. Data derived from medical imaging provide new effective tools to enhance thermal physiology research and gain deeper insight into the mechanisms of how the human body maintains heat balance.

Three-dimensional anthropometric techniques applied to the fabrication of burn masks and the quantification of wound healing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Whitestone, Jennifer J.; Geisen, Glen R.; McQuiston, Barbara K.

1997-03-01

Anthropometric surveys conducted by the military provide comprehensive human body measurement data that are human interface requirements for successful mission performance of weapon systems, including cockpits, protective equipment, and clothing. The application of human body dimensions to model humans and human-machine performance begins with engineering anthropometry. There are two critical elements to engineering anthropometry: data acquisition and data analysis. First, the human body is captured dimensionally with either traditional anthropometric tools, such as calipers and tape measures, or with advanced image acquisition systems, such as a laser scanner. Next, numerous statistical analysis tools, such as multivariate modeling and feature envelopes, are used to effectively transition these data for design and evaluation of equipment and work environments. Recently, Air Force technology transfer allowed researchers at the Computerized Anthropometric Research and Design (CARD) Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to work with the Dayton, Ohio area medical community in assessing the rate of wound healing and improving the fit of total contract burn masks. This paper describes the successful application of CARD Lab engineering anthropometry to two medically oriented human interface problems.

Human microbiomes and their roles in dysbiosis, common diseases, and novel therapeutic approaches.

PubMed

Belizário, José E; Napolitano, Mauro

2015-01-01

The human body is the residence of a large number of commensal (non-pathogenic) and pathogenic microbial species that have co-evolved with the human genome, adaptive immune system, and diet. With recent advances in DNA-based technologies, we initiated the exploration of bacterial gene functions and their role in human health. The main goal of the human microbiome project is to characterize the abundance, diversity and functionality of the genes present in all microorganisms that permanently live in different sites of the human body. The gut microbiota expresses over 3.3 million bacterial genes, while the human genome expresses only 20 thousand genes. Microbe gene-products exert pivotal functions via the regulation of food digestion and immune system development. Studies are confirming that manipulation of non-pathogenic bacterial strains in the host can stimulate the recovery of the immune response to pathogenic bacteria causing diseases. Different approaches, including the use of nutraceutics (prebiotics and probiotics) as well as phages engineered with CRISPR/Cas systems and quorum sensing systems have been developed as new therapies for controlling dysbiosis (alterations in microbial community) and common diseases (e.g., diabetes and obesity). The designing and production of pharmaceuticals based on our own body's microbiome is an emerging field and is rapidly growing to be fully explored in the near future. This review provides an outlook on recent findings on the human microbiomes, their impact on health and diseases, and on the development of targeted therapies.

DTN routing in body sensor networks with dynamic postural partitioning.

PubMed

Quwaider, Muhannad; Biswas, Subir

2010-11-01

This paper presents novel store-and-forward packet routing algorithms for Wireless Body Area Networks ( WBAN ) with frequent postural partitioning. A prototype WBAN has been constructed for experimentally characterizing on-body topology disconnections in the presence of ultra short range radio links, unpredictable RF attenuation, and human postural mobility. On-body DTN routing protocols are then developed using a stochastic link cost formulation, capturing multi-scale topological localities in human postural movements. Performance of the proposed protocols are evaluated experimentally and via simulation, and are compared with a number of existing single-copy DTN routing protocols and an on-body packet flooding mechanism that serves as a performance benchmark with delay lower-bound. It is shown that via multi-scale modeling of the spatio-temporal locality of on-body link disconnection patterns, the proposed algorithms can provide better routing performance compared to a number of existing probabilistic, opportunistic, and utility-based DTN routing protocols in the literature.

Intra-body microwave communication through adipose tissue.

PubMed

Asan, Noor Badariah; Noreland, Daniel; Hassan, Emadeldeen; Redzwan Mohd Shah, Syaiful; Rydberg, Anders; Blokhuis, Taco J; Carlsson, Per-Ola; Voigt, Thiemo; Augustine, Robin

2017-08-01

The human body can act as a medium for the transmission of electromagnetic waves in the wireless body sensor networks context. However, there are transmission losses in biological tissues due to the presence of water and salts. This Letter focuses on lateral intra-body microwave communication through different biological tissue layers and demonstrates the effect of the tissue thicknesses by comparing signal coupling in the channel. For this work, the authors utilise the R-band frequencies since it overlaps the industrial, scientific and medical radio (ISM) band. The channel model in human tissues is proposed based on electromagnetic simulations, validated using equivalent phantom and ex-vivo measurements. The phantom and ex-vivo measurements are compared with simulation modelling. The results show that electromagnetic communication is feasible in the adipose tissue layer with a low attenuation of ∼2 dB per 20 mm for phantom measurements and 4 dB per 20 mm for ex-vivo measurements at 2 GHz. Since the dielectric losses of human adipose tissues are almost half of ex-vivo tissue, an attenuation of around 3 dB per 20 mm is expected. The results show that human adipose tissue can be used as an intra-body communication channel.

CT scan range estimation using multiple body parts detection: let PACS learn the CT image content.

PubMed

Wang, Chunliang; Lundström, Claes

2016-02-01

The aim of this study was to develop an efficient CT scan range estimation method that is based on the analysis of image data itself instead of metadata analysis. This makes it possible to quantitatively compare the scan range of two studies. In our study, 3D stacks are first projected to 2D coronal images via a ray casting-like process. Trained 2D body part classifiers are then used to recognize different body parts in the projected image. The detected candidate regions go into a structure grouping process to eliminate false-positive detections. Finally, the scale and position of the patient relative to the projected figure are estimated based on the detected body parts via a structural voting. The start and end lines of the CT scan are projected to a standard human figure. The position readout is normalized so that the bottom of the feet represents 0.0, and the top of the head is 1.0. Classifiers for 18 body parts were trained using 184 CT scans. The final application was tested on 136 randomly selected heterogeneous CT scans. Ground truth was generated by asking two human observers to mark the start and end positions of each scan on the standard human figure. When compared with the human observers, the mean absolute error of the proposed method is 1.2% (max: 3.5%) and 1.6% (max: 5.4%) for the start and end positions, respectively. We proposed a scan range estimation method using multiple body parts detection and relative structure position analysis. In our preliminary tests, the proposed method delivered promising results.

Human body burden of polychlorinated dibenzofurans associated with toxicity based on the yusho and yucheng incidents

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ryan, J.J.; Gasiewicz, T.A.; Brown, J.F. Jr.

1990-11-01

The polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) are one group of man-made toxicants for which reasonably extensive data exist relevant to dose-response relationships in humans. Examination of contaminated food oil consumption from the yusho (Japan) poisoning incident indicates the mean uptake or body burden of 2, 3, 4, 7, 8-pentachlorodibenzofuran (PnCDF) equivalents (PEQ) associated with nausea and anorexia to be 4.4 micrograms/kg body wt and that associated with chloracne to be 5.9 micrograms/kg. For the yucheng (Taiwan) poisoning incident, blood measurements for chloracne show a similar body burden of 4.0 micrograms/kg. The latter value is toxicologically equivalent to a 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin equivalent (TEQ) bodymore » burden of 2.0 micrograms/kg body wt or about 150 micrograms for an adult person. This corresponds to an adipose tissue level of about 10 micrograms/kg fat, and is comparable to that known to cause chloracne in rhesus monkeys. These body burdens on a TEQ basis are more than 200 times higher than the average current levels of PCDDs/PCDFs found in North American populations and are the first to relate human body burdens of PCDFs with a known effect and to compare them to animal data. Since the effects reported may not be the most sensitive indicator of human toxicity, lower body burdens could be associated with more subtle toxicological events.« less

21 CFR 357.150 - Labeling of anthelmintic drug products.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

... Section 357.150 Food and Drugs FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (CONTINUED) DRUGS FOR HUMAN USE MISCELLANEOUS INTERNAL DRUG PRODUCTS FOR OVER-THE-COUNTER HUMAN USE... milligrams of pyrantel base per pound, or 11 milligrams per kilogram, of body weight not to exceed 1 gram...

21 CFR 357.150 - Labeling of anthelmintic drug products.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-04-01

... Section 357.150 Food and Drugs FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (CONTINUED) DRUGS FOR HUMAN USE MISCELLANEOUS INTERNAL DRUG PRODUCTS FOR OVER-THE-COUNTER HUMAN USE... milligrams of pyrantel base per pound, or 11 milligrams per kilogram, of body weight not to exceed 1 gram...

21 CFR 357.150 - Labeling of anthelmintic drug products.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... Section 357.150 Food and Drugs FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (CONTINUED) DRUGS FOR HUMAN USE MISCELLANEOUS INTERNAL DRUG PRODUCTS FOR OVER-THE-COUNTER HUMAN USE... milligrams of pyrantel base per pound, or 11 milligrams per kilogram, of body weight not to exceed 1 gram...

21 CFR 357.150 - Labeling of anthelmintic drug products.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-04-01

... Section 357.150 Food and Drugs FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (CONTINUED) DRUGS FOR HUMAN USE MISCELLANEOUS INTERNAL DRUG PRODUCTS FOR OVER-THE-COUNTER HUMAN USE... milligrams of pyrantel base per pound, or 11 milligrams per kilogram, of body weight not to exceed 1 gram...

21 CFR 357.150 - Labeling of anthelmintic drug products.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-04-01

... Section 357.150 Food and Drugs FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (CONTINUED) DRUGS FOR HUMAN USE MISCELLANEOUS INTERNAL DRUG PRODUCTS FOR OVER-THE-COUNTER HUMAN USE... milligrams of pyrantel base per pound, or 11 milligrams per kilogram, of body weight not to exceed 1 gram...

Women, Human Development, and Learning. ERIC Digest.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kerka, Sandra

A growing body of literature is questioning whether existing models of human development apply equally to men and women. Prevailing theories of human development have been criticized for being based on research with primarily male subjects of similar ethnic, racial, or class backgrounds. Some research supports the viewpoint that women have…

The two types of stethoscope systems for respiration system diagnostics of the human body

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abashkin, Vladimir; Achimova, Elena

2003-12-01

An acoustic multimode fiber optic sensors for medical diagnostics based upon the shutter principle has been elaborated with semiconductor laser diode as light source. The construction and the method of component preparation are described. Other type of stethoscope is electrical one. Both stethoscopes are four channels. The kinetics and dynamic vibrations and sounds of the human body can be detected, acquired and then processing by personal computer for medical diagnostics.

The detection and discrimination of human body fluids using ATR FT-IR spectroscopy.

PubMed

Orphanou, Charlotte-Maria; Walton-Williams, Laura; Mountain, Harry; Cassella, John

2015-07-01

Blood, saliva, semen and vaginal secretions are the main human body fluids encountered at crime scenes. Currently presumptive tests are routinely utilised to indicate the presence of body fluids, although these are often subject to false positives and limited to particular body fluids. Over the last decade more sensitive and specific body fluid identification methods have been explored, such as mRNA analysis and proteomics, although these are not yet appropriate for routine application. This research investigated the application of ATR FT-IR spectroscopy for the detection and discrimination of human blood, saliva, semen and vaginal secretions. The results demonstrated that ATR FT-IR spectroscopy can detect and distinguish between these body fluids based on the unique spectral pattern, combination of peaks and peak frequencies corresponding to the macromolecule groups common within biological material. Comparisons with known abundant proteins relevant to each body fluid were also analysed to enable specific peaks to be attributed to the relevant protein components, which further reinforced the discrimination and identification of each body fluid. Overall, this preliminary research has demonstrated the potential for ATR FT-IR spectroscopy to be utilised in the routine confirmatory screening of biological evidence due to its quick and robust application within forensic science. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

42 CFR 68a.2 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES FELLOWSHIPS, INTERNSHIPS, TRAINING... annual income below a level based on low-income thresholds according to family size published by the U.S..., and health professions schools which are accredited by a body or bodies recognized for accreditation...

42 CFR 68a.2 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES FELLOWSHIPS, INTERNSHIPS, TRAINING... annual income below a level based on low-income thresholds according to family size published by the U.S..., and health professions schools which are accredited by a body or bodies recognized for accreditation...

Research on human physiological parameters intelligent clothing based on distributed Fiber Bragg Grating

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miao, Changyun; Shi, Boya; Li, Hongqiang

2008-12-01

A human physiological parameters intelligent clothing is researched with FBG sensor technology. In this paper, the principles and methods of measuring human physiological parameters including body temperature and heart rate in intelligent clothing with distributed FBG are studied, the mathematical models of human physiological parameters measurement are built; the processing method of body temperature and heart rate detection signals is presented; human physiological parameters detection module is designed, the interference signals are filtered out, and the measurement accuracy is improved; the integration of the intelligent clothing is given. The intelligent clothing can implement real-time measurement, processing, storage and output of body temperature and heart rate. It has accurate measurement, portability, low cost, real-time monitoring, and other advantages. The intelligent clothing can realize the non-contact monitoring between doctors and patients, timely find the diseases such as cancer and infectious diseases, and make patients get timely treatment. It has great significance and value for ensuring the health of the elders and the children with language dysfunction.

Electrostatic hazards of charging of bedclothes and ignition in medical facilities.

PubMed

Endo, Yuta; Ohsawa, Atsushi; Yamaguma, Mizuki

2018-02-26

We investigated the charge generated on bedclothes (cotton and polyester) during bedding exchange with different humidities and the ignitability of an alcohol-based hand sanitizer (72.3 mass% ethanol) due to static spark with different temperatures to identify the hazards of electrostatic shocks and ignitions occurring previously in medical facilities. The results indicated that charging of the polyester bedclothes may induce a human body potential of over about 10 kV, resulting in shocks even at a relative humidity of 50%, and a human body potential of higher than about 8 kV can cause a risk for the ignition of the hand sanitizer. The grounding of human bodies via footwear and flooring, therefore, is essential to avoid such hazards (or to reduce such risks).

A Systems Study to Determine the Attractiveness of Solar System Bodies and Sites for Eventual Human Exploration

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Andringa, Jason M.; Gray, Andrew A.

2005-01-01

A pre-phase A idea-generation team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), has conducted a study to rank all locations in the solar system based on attractiveness for human exploration. The process used to perform the study was composed of the following primary steps: determination of criteria (including value, cost, and risk criteria) upon which to rate sites in the solar system; weighting of the criteria based upon importance to eventual human exploration; selection of sites to consider and assignment of team members to the task of advocating the benefits of particular sites; rating the sites in both the short- and longterm based on team member presentations and team discussions; compilation of a score based on criteria weights and individual ratings. Finally a comparison of the total scores of different sites was completed to determine a ranking of all the bodies and sites in the solar system. Sensitivity analysis was also performed to determine how weightings affect the rankings.

Can blind persons accurately assess body size from the voice?

PubMed

Pisanski, Katarzyna; Oleszkiewicz, Anna; Sorokowska, Agnieszka

2016-04-01

Vocal tract resonances provide reliable information about a speaker's body size that human listeners use for biosocial judgements as well as speech recognition. Although humans can accurately assess men's relative body size from the voice alone, how this ability is acquired remains unknown. In this study, we test the prediction that accurate voice-based size estimation is possible without prior audiovisual experience linking low frequencies to large bodies. Ninety-one healthy congenitally or early blind, late blind and sighted adults (aged 20-65) participated in the study. On the basis of vowel sounds alone, participants assessed the relative body sizes of male pairs of varying heights. Accuracy of voice-based body size assessments significantly exceeded chance and did not differ among participants who were sighted, or congenitally blind or who had lost their sight later in life. Accuracy increased significantly with relative differences in physical height between men, suggesting that both blind and sighted participants used reliable vocal cues to size (i.e. vocal tract resonances). Our findings demonstrate that prior visual experience is not necessary for accurate body size estimation. This capacity, integral to both nonverbal communication and speech perception, may be present at birth or may generalize from broader cross-modal correspondences. © 2016 The Author(s).

Can blind persons accurately assess body size from the voice?

PubMed Central

Oleszkiewicz, Anna; Sorokowska, Agnieszka

2016-01-01

Vocal tract resonances provide reliable information about a speaker's body size that human listeners use for biosocial judgements as well as speech recognition. Although humans can accurately assess men's relative body size from the voice alone, how this ability is acquired remains unknown. In this study, we test the prediction that accurate voice-based size estimation is possible without prior audiovisual experience linking low frequencies to large bodies. Ninety-one healthy congenitally or early blind, late blind and sighted adults (aged 20–65) participated in the study. On the basis of vowel sounds alone, participants assessed the relative body sizes of male pairs of varying heights. Accuracy of voice-based body size assessments significantly exceeded chance and did not differ among participants who were sighted, or congenitally blind or who had lost their sight later in life. Accuracy increased significantly with relative differences in physical height between men, suggesting that both blind and sighted participants used reliable vocal cues to size (i.e. vocal tract resonances). Our findings demonstrate that prior visual experience is not necessary for accurate body size estimation. This capacity, integral to both nonverbal communication and speech perception, may be present at birth or may generalize from broader cross-modal correspondences. PMID:27095264

Prediction of Body Fluids where Proteins are Secreted into Based on Protein Interaction Network

PubMed Central

Hu, Le-Le; Huang, Tao; Cai, Yu-Dong; Chou, Kuo-Chen

2011-01-01

Determining the body fluids where secreted proteins can be secreted into is important for protein function annotation and disease biomarker discovery. In this study, we developed a network-based method to predict which kind of body fluids human proteins can be secreted into. For a newly constructed benchmark dataset that consists of 529 human-secreted proteins, the prediction accuracy for the most possible body fluid location predicted by our method via the jackknife test was 79.02%, significantly higher than the success rate by a random guess (29.36%). The likelihood that the predicted body fluids of the first four orders contain all the true body fluids where the proteins can be secreted into is 62.94%. Our method was further demonstrated with two independent datasets: one contains 57 proteins that can be secreted into blood; while the other contains 61 proteins that can be secreted into plasma/serum and were possible biomarkers associated with various cancers. For the 57 proteins in first dataset, 55 were correctly predicted as blood-secrete proteins. For the 61 proteins in the second dataset, 58 were predicted to be most possible in plasma/serum. These encouraging results indicate that the network-based prediction method is quite promising. It is anticipated that the method will benefit the relevant areas for both basic research and drug development. PMID:21829572

Modal Damping Ratio and Optimal Elastic Moduli of Human Body Segments for Anthropometric Vibratory Model of Standing Subjects.

PubMed

Gupta, Manoj; Gupta, T C

2017-10-01

The present study aims to accurately estimate inertial, physical, and dynamic parameters of human body vibratory model consistent with physical structure of the human body that also replicates its dynamic response. A 13 degree-of-freedom (DOF) lumped parameter model for standing person subjected to support excitation is established. Model parameters are determined from anthropometric measurements, uniform mass density, elastic modulus of individual body segments, and modal damping ratios. Elastic moduli of ellipsoidal body segments are initially estimated by comparing stiffness of spring elements, calculated from a detailed scheme, and values available in literature for same. These values are further optimized by minimizing difference between theoretically calculated platform-to-head transmissibility ratio (TR) and experimental measurements. Modal damping ratios are estimated from experimental transmissibility response using two dominant peaks in the frequency range of 0-25 Hz. From comparison between dynamic response determined form modal analysis and experimental results, a set of elastic moduli for different segments of human body and a novel scheme to determine modal damping ratios from TR plots, are established. Acceptable match between transmissibility values calculated from the vibratory model and experimental measurements for 50th percentile U.S. male, except at very low frequencies, establishes the human body model developed. Also, reasonable agreement obtained between theoretical response curve and experimental response envelop for average Indian male, affirms the technique used for constructing vibratory model of a standing person. Present work attempts to develop effective technique for constructing subject specific damped vibratory model based on its physical measurements.

Categorical discrimination of human body parts by magnetoencephalography

PubMed Central

Nakamura, Misaki; Yanagisawa, Takufumi; Okamura, Yumiko; Fukuma, Ryohei; Hirata, Masayuki; Araki, Toshihiko; Kamitani, Yukiyasu; Yorifuji, Shiro

2015-01-01

Humans recognize body parts in categories. Previous studies have shown that responses in the fusiform body area (FBA) and extrastriate body area (EBA) are evoked by the perception of the human body, when presented either as whole or as isolated parts. These responses occur approximately 190 ms after body images are visualized. The extent to which body-sensitive responses show specificity for different body part categories remains to be largely clarified. We used a decoding method to quantify neural responses associated with the perception of different categories of body parts. Nine subjects underwent measurements of their brain activities by magnetoencephalography (MEG) while viewing 14 images of feet, hands, mouths, and objects. We decoded categories of the presented images from the MEG signals using a support vector machine (SVM) and calculated their accuracy by 10-fold cross-validation. For each subject, a response that appeared to be a body-sensitive response was observed and the MEG signals corresponding to the three types of body categories were classified based on the signals in the occipitotemporal cortex. The accuracy in decoding body-part categories (with a peak at approximately 48%) was above chance (33.3%) and significantly higher than that for random categories. According to the time course and location, the responses are suggested to be body-sensitive and to include information regarding the body-part category. Finally, this non-invasive method can decode category information of a visual object with high temporal and spatial resolution and this result may have a significant impact in the field of brain–machine interface research. PMID:26582986

Categorical discrimination of human body parts by magnetoencephalography.

PubMed

Nakamura, Misaki; Yanagisawa, Takufumi; Okamura, Yumiko; Fukuma, Ryohei; Hirata, Masayuki; Araki, Toshihiko; Kamitani, Yukiyasu; Yorifuji, Shiro

2015-01-01

Humans recognize body parts in categories. Previous studies have shown that responses in the fusiform body area (FBA) and extrastriate body area (EBA) are evoked by the perception of the human body, when presented either as whole or as isolated parts. These responses occur approximately 190 ms after body images are visualized. The extent to which body-sensitive responses show specificity for different body part categories remains to be largely clarified. We used a decoding method to quantify neural responses associated with the perception of different categories of body parts. Nine subjects underwent measurements of their brain activities by magnetoencephalography (MEG) while viewing 14 images of feet, hands, mouths, and objects. We decoded categories of the presented images from the MEG signals using a support vector machine (SVM) and calculated their accuracy by 10-fold cross-validation. For each subject, a response that appeared to be a body-sensitive response was observed and the MEG signals corresponding to the three types of body categories were classified based on the signals in the occipitotemporal cortex. The accuracy in decoding body-part categories (with a peak at approximately 48%) was above chance (33.3%) and significantly higher than that for random categories. According to the time course and location, the responses are suggested to be body-sensitive and to include information regarding the body-part category. Finally, this non-invasive method can decode category information of a visual object with high temporal and spatial resolution and this result may have a significant impact in the field of brain-machine interface research.

Isolating Observer-Based Reference Directions in Human Spatial Memory: Head, Body, and the Self-to-Array Axis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Waller, David; Lippa, Yvonne; Richardson, Adam

2008-01-01

Several lines of research have suggested the importance of egocentric reference systems for determining how the spatial properties of one's environment are mentally organized. Yet relatively little is known about the bases for egocentric reference systems in human spatial memory. In three experiments, we examine the relative importance of…

Energy Harvesting Based Body Area Networks for Smart Health.

PubMed

Hao, Yixue; Peng, Limei; Lu, Huimin; Hassan, Mohammad Mehedi; Alamri, Atif

2017-07-10

Body area networks (BANs) are configured with a great number of ultra-low power consumption wearable devices, which constantly monitor physiological signals of the human body and thus realize intelligent monitoring. However, the collection and transfer of human body signals consume energy, and considering the comfort demand of wearable devices, both the size and the capacity of a wearable device's battery are limited. Thus, minimizing the energy consumption of wearable devices and optimizing the BAN energy efficiency is still a challenging problem. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an energy harvesting-based BAN for smart health and discuss an optimal resource allocation scheme to improve BAN energy efficiency. Specifically, firstly, considering energy harvesting in a BAN and the time limits of human body signal transfer, we formulate the energy efficiency optimization problem of time division for wireless energy transfer and wireless information transfer. Secondly, we convert the optimization problem into a convex optimization problem under a linear constraint and propose a closed-form solution to the problem. Finally, simulation results proved that when the size of data acquired by the wearable devices is small, the proportion of energy consumed by the circuit and signal acquisition of the wearable devices is big, and when the size of data acquired by the wearable devices is big, the energy consumed by the signal transfer of the wearable device is decisive.

Energy Harvesting Based Body Area Networks for Smart Health

PubMed Central

Hao, Yixue; Peng, Limei; Alamri, Atif

2017-01-01

Body area networks (BANs) are configured with a great number of ultra-low power consumption wearable devices, which constantly monitor physiological signals of the human body and thus realize intelligent monitoring. However, the collection and transfer of human body signals consume energy, and considering the comfort demand of wearable devices, both the size and the capacity of a wearable device’s battery are limited. Thus, minimizing the energy consumption of wearable devices and optimizing the BAN energy efficiency is still a challenging problem. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an energy harvesting-based BAN for smart health and discuss an optimal resource allocation scheme to improve BAN energy efficiency. Specifically, firstly, considering energy harvesting in a BAN and the time limits of human body signal transfer, we formulate the energy efficiency optimization problem of time division for wireless energy transfer and wireless information transfer. Secondly, we convert the optimization problem into a convex optimization problem under a linear constraint and propose a closed-form solution to the problem. Finally, simulation results proved that when the size of data acquired by the wearable devices is small, the proportion of energy consumed by the circuit and signal acquisition of the wearable devices is big, and when the size of data acquired by the wearable devices is big, the energy consumed by the signal transfer of the wearable device is decisive. PMID:28698501

Feasibility of assessing health state by detecting redox state of human body based on Chinese medicine constitution.

PubMed

Li, Ling-Ru; Wang, Qi; Wang, Ji; Wang, Qian-Fei; Yang, Ling-Ling; Zheng, Lu-Yu; Zhang, Yan

2016-08-01

This article discussed the feasibility of assessing health state by detecting redox state of human body. Firstly, the balance of redox state is the basis of homeostasis, and the balance ability of redox can reflflect health state of human body. Secondly, the redox state of human body is a sensitive index of multiple risk factors of health such as age, external environment and psychological factors. It participates in the occurrence and development of multiple diseases involving metabolic diseases and nervous system diseases, and can serve as a cut-in point for treatment of these diseases. Detecting the redox state of high risk people is signifificantly important for early detection and treatment of disease. The blood plasma and urine could be selected to detect, which is convenient. It is pointed that the indexes not only involve oxidation product and antioxidant enzyme but also redox couple. Chinese medicine constitution reflflects the state of body itself and the ability of adapting to external environment, which is consistent with the connotation of health. It is found that there are nine basic types of constitution in Chinese population, which provides a theoretical basis of health preservation, preventive treatment of disease and personalized treatment. With the combination of redox state detection and the Chinese medicine constitution theory, the heath state can be systemically assessed by conducting large-scale epidemiological survey with classifified detection on redox state of human body.

Efficiencies for parts and wholes in biological-motion perception.

PubMed

Bromfield, W Drew; Gold, Jason M

2017-10-01

People can reliably infer the actions, intentions, and mental states of fellow humans from body movements (Blake & Shiffrar, 2007). Previous research on such biological-motion perception has suggested that the movements of the feet may play a particularly important role in making certain judgments about locomotion (Chang & Troje, 2009; Troje & Westhoff, 2006). One account of this effect is that the human visual system may have evolved specialized processes that are efficient for extracting information carried by the feet (Troje & Westhoff, 2006). Alternatively, the motion of the feet may simply be more discriminable than that of other parts of the body. To dissociate these two possibilities, we measured people's ability to discriminate the walking direction of stimuli in which individual body parts (feet, hands) were removed or shown in isolation. We then compared human performance to that of a statistically optimal observer (Gold, Tadin, Cook, & Blake, 2008), giving us a measure of humans' discriminative ability independent of the information available (a quantity known as efficiency). We found that efficiency was highest when the hands and the feet were shown in isolation. A series of follow-up experiments suggested that observers were relying on a form-based cue with the isolated hands (specifically, the orientation of their path through space) and a motion-based cue with the isolated feet to achieve such high efficiencies. We relate our findings to previous proposals of a distinction between form-based and motion-based mechanisms in biological-motion perception.

Research into automatic recognition of joints in human symmetrical movements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fan, Yifang; Li, Zhiyu

2008-03-01

High speed photography is a major means of collecting data from human body movement. It enables the automatic identification of joints, which brings great significance to the research, treatment and recovery of injuries, the analysis to the diagnosis of sport techniques and the ergonomics. According to the features that when the adjacent joints of human body are in planetary motion, their distance remains the same, and according to the human body joint movement laws (such as the territory of the articular anatomy and the kinematic features), a new approach is introduced to process the image thresholding of joints filmed by the high speed camera, to automatically identify the joints and to automatically trace the joint points (by labeling markers at the joints). Based upon the closure of marking points, automatic identification can be achieved through thresholding treatment. Due to the screening frequency and the laws of human segment movement, when the marking points have been initialized, their automatic tracking can be achieved with the progressive sequential images.Then the testing results, the data from three-dimensional force platform and the characteristics that human body segment will only rotate around the closer ending segment when the segment has no boding force and only valid to the conservative force all tell that after being analyzed kinematically, the approach is approved to be valid.

[Survival Strategies of Aspergillus in the Human Body].

PubMed

Tashiro, Masato; Izumikawa, Koichi

2017-01-01

 The human body is a hostile environment for Aspergillus species, which originally live outside the human body. There are lots of elimination mechanisms against Aspergillus inhaled into the human body, such as high body temperature, soluble lung components, mucociliary clearance mechanism, or responses of phagocytes. Aspergillus fumigatus, which is the primary causative agent of human infections among the human pathogenic species of Aspergillus, defend itself from the hostile human body environment by various mechanisms, such as thermotolerance, mycotoxin production, and characteristic morphological features. Here we review mechanisms of defense in Aspergillus against elimination from the human body.

The influence of relative body breadth on the diaphyseal morphology of the human lower limb.

PubMed

Davies, Thomas G; Stock, Jay T

2014-01-01

Variation in relative body breadth between individuals is potentially a significant influence on the biomechanical loading placed upon the lower limb. This study investigates the influence of relative body breadth on the periosteal geometry of the diaphyses of the limb bones among individuals from a broad range of human populations. This study applies a 3D laser scanning approach to the extraction and analysis of periosteal cross-sectional properties throughout the diaphyses of the femur and tibia to test for influences of body shape on diaphyseal morphology throughout the lower limb. Analyses are based on data collected from seven populations, encompassing a broad range of modern human variation in body shape. Hypertrophy of the proximal end of the femur diaphysis in wider bodied individuals is observed and appears to extend at least as far as the femur midshaft, while the mid diaphyseal region of the tibia is the least influenced by body shape. However correlations with relative body breadth were also observed towards the distal end of the femur diaphysis and towards both ends of the tibial diaphysis, especially among females. Relative body breadth is correlated with the periosteal geometry of the lower limb bones, particularly towards the proximal end of the femur diaphysis, but correlations in other regions also suggest integration of the diaphyseal geometry with epiphyseal dimensions. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Standing adult human phantoms based on 10th, 50th and 90th mass and height percentiles of male and female Caucasian populations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cassola, V. F.; Milian, F. M.; Kramer, R.; de Oliveira Lira, C. A. B.; Khoury, H. J.

2011-07-01

Computational anthropomorphic human phantoms are useful tools developed for the calculation of absorbed or equivalent dose to radiosensitive organs and tissues of the human body. The problem is, however, that, strictly speaking, the results can be applied only to a person who has the same anatomy as the phantom, while for a person with different body mass and/or standing height the data could be wrong. In order to improve this situation for many areas in radiological protection, this study developed 18 anthropometric standing adult human phantoms, nine models per gender, as a function of the 10th, 50th and 90th mass and height percentiles of Caucasian populations. The anthropometric target parameters for body mass, standing height and other body measures were extracted from PeopleSize, a well-known software package used in the area of ergonomics. The phantoms were developed based on the assumption of a constant body-mass index for a given mass percentile and for different heights. For a given height, increase or decrease of body mass was considered to reflect mainly the change of subcutaneous adipose tissue mass, i.e. that organ masses were not changed. Organ mass scaling as a function of height was based on information extracted from autopsy data. The methods used here were compared with those used in other studies, anatomically as well as dosimetrically. For external exposure, the results show that equivalent dose decreases with increasing body mass for organs and tissues located below the subcutaneous adipose tissue layer, such as liver, colon, stomach, etc, while for organs located at the surface, such as breasts, testes and skin, the equivalent dose increases or remains constant with increasing body mass due to weak attenuation and more scatter radiation caused by the increasing adipose tissue mass. Changes of standing height have little influence on the equivalent dose to organs and tissues from external exposure. Specific absorbed fractions (SAFs) have also been calculated with the 18 anthropometric phantoms. The results show that SAFs decrease with increasing height and increase with increasing body mass. The calculated data suggest that changes of the body mass may have a significant effect on equivalent doses, primarily for external exposure to organs and tissue located below the adipose tissue layer, while for superficial organs, for changes of height and for internal exposures the effects on equivalent dose are small to moderate.

An Alternative Representation of a Simulated Human Body

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-11-01

Casualty Assessment ( ORCA )3 uses this model to determine injury from insults to the body from fragments and bullets. An alternative representation was...Based Casualty Assessment: ORCA Analyst’s Manual; U.S. Army Research Laboratory: Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, August 2005; draft. 4 U.S. Army Natick

Recovery of bioactive protein from bacterial inclusion bodies using trifluoroethanol as solubilization agent.

PubMed

Upadhyay, Vaibhav; Singh, Anupam; Jha, Divya; Singh, Akansha; Panda, Amulya K

2016-06-08

Formation of inclusion bodies poses a major hurdle in recovery of bioactive recombinant protein from Escherichia coli. Urea and guanidine hydrochloride have routinely been used to solubilize inclusion body proteins, but many times result in poor recovery of bioactive protein. High pH buffers, detergents and organic solvents like n-propanol have been successfully used as mild solubilization agents for high throughput recovery of bioactive protein from bacterial inclusion bodies. These mild solubilization agents preserve native-like secondary structures of proteins in inclusion body aggregates and result in improved recovery of bioactive protein as compared to conventional solubilization agents. Here we demonstrate solubilization of human growth hormone inclusion body aggregates using 30% trifluoroethanol in presence of 3 M urea and its refolding into bioactive form. Human growth hormone was expressed in E. coli M15 (pREP) cells in the form of inclusion bodies. Different concentrations of trifluoroethanol with or without addition of low concentration (3 M) of urea were used for solubilization of inclusion body aggregates. Thirty percent trifluoroethanol in combination with 3 M urea was found to be suitable for efficient solubilization of human growth hormone inclusion bodies. Solubilized protein was refolded by dilution and purified by anion exchange and size exclusion chromatography. Purified protein was analyzed for secondary and tertiary structure using different spectroscopic tools and was found to be bioactive by cell proliferation assay. To understand the mechanism of action of trifluoroethanol, secondary and tertiary structure of human growth hormone in trifluoroethanol was compared to that in presence of other denaturants like urea and guanidine hydrochloride. Trifluoroethanol was found to be stabilizing the secondary structure and destabilizing the tertiary structure of protein. Finally, it was observed that trifluoroethanol can be used to solubilize inclusion bodies of a number of proteins. Trifluoroethanol was found to be a suitable mild solubilization agent for bacterial inclusion bodies. Fully functional, bioactive human growth hormone was recovered in high yield from inclusion bodies using trifluoroethanol based solubilization buffer. It was also observed that trifluoroethanol has potential to solubilize inclusion bodies of different proteins.

Neurotoxicity of lead, methylmercury, and PCBs in relation to the Great Lakes.

PubMed Central

Rice, D C

1995-01-01

There is ample evidence identifying lead, methylmercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as neurotoxic agents. A large body of data on the neurotoxicity of lead, based on both epidemiologic studies in children and animal models of developmental exposure, reveals that body burdens of lead typical of people in industrialized environments produce behavioral impairment. Methylmercury was identified as a neurotoxicant in both adults and the developing organism based on episodes of human poisoning: these effects have been replicated and extended in animals. High-dose PCB exposure was recognized as a developmental toxicant as a result of several episodes of contamination of cooking oil. The threshold for PCB neurotoxicity in humans is less clear, although research in animals suggests that relatively low-level exposure produces behavioral impairment and other toxic effects. Tissue levels in fish below which human health would not be adversely affected were estimated for methylmercury and PCBs based on calculated reference doses (RfDs) and estimated fish intake. Present levels in fish tissue in the Great Lakes exceed these levels for both neurotoxicants. Great Lakes fish and water do not pose a particular hazard for increased lead intake. However, the fact that the present human body burden is in a range at which functional deficits are probable suggests that efforts should be made to eliminate point sources of lead contamination in the Great Lakes basin. PMID:8635443

Creating Body Shapes From Verbal Descriptions by Linking Similarity Spaces.

PubMed

Hill, Matthew Q; Streuber, Stephan; Hahn, Carina A; Black, Michael J; O'Toole, Alice J

2016-11-01

Brief verbal descriptions of people's bodies (e.g., "curvy," "long-legged") can elicit vivid mental images. The ease with which these mental images are created belies the complexity of three-dimensional body shapes. We explored the relationship between body shapes and body descriptions and showed that a small number of words can be used to generate categorically accurate representations of three-dimensional bodies. The dimensions of body-shape variation that emerged in a language-based similarity space were related to major dimensions of variation computed directly from three-dimensional laser scans of 2,094 bodies. This relationship allowed us to generate three-dimensional models of people in the shape space using only their coordinates on analogous dimensions in the language-based description space. Human descriptions of photographed bodies and their corresponding models matched closely. The natural mapping between the spaces illustrates the role of language as a concise code for body shape that captures perceptually salient global and local body features. © The Author(s) 2016.

The utility of cadaver-based approaches for the teaching of human anatomy: A survey of British and Irish anatomy teachers.

PubMed

Balta, Joy Y; Cronin, Michael; Cryan, John F; O'Mahony, Siobhain M

2017-03-01

Utilizing reality anatomy such as dissection and demonstrating using cadavers has been described as a superior way to create meaning. The chemicals used to embalm cadavers differentially alter the tissue of the human body, which has led to the usage of different processes along the hard to soft-fixed spectrum of preserved cadavers. A questionnaire based approach was used to gain a better insight into the opinion of anatomists on the use of preserved cadavers for the teaching of human anatomy. This study focused on anatomy teachers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. From the 125 participating anatomists, 34.4% were medically qualified, 30.4% had a PhD in a non-anatomical science and 22.4% had a PhD in an anatomical science, these figures include ten anatomists who had combinations of MD with the two other PhD qualifications. The main findings from the questionnaire were that 61.6% of participants agreed that hard-fixed formalin cadavers accurately resemble features of a human body whereas 21.6% disagreed. Moreover, anatomists rated the teaching aids on how accurately they resemble features of the human body as follows: plastic models the least accurate followed by plastinated specimens, hard fixed cadavers; soft preserved cadavers were considered to be the most accurate when it comes to resembling features of the human body. Though anatomists considered soft preserved cadavers as the most accurate tool, further research is required in order to investigate which techniques or methods provide better teaching tool for a range of anatomical teaching levels and for surgical training. Anat Sci Educ 10: 137-143. © 2016 American Association of Anatomists. © 2016 American Association of Anatomists.

The ISO Standard Guide for the Evaluation of Human Exposure to Whole- Body Vibration

DTIC Science & Technology

1975-11-01

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base AFTER 10 YEARS of intensive work of Subcom- broad support for a document, which tries to mittee 4, "Human Expost -re to...The ISO member ber of clarifying studies directed to fill in bodies of 20 countries interested in this sub- gaps in our krowledge or to support or...standard. As Chairman of the tions incorporating the all-important expo- ISO subcommittee, which prepared this document, sure time as a factor . I can

Biogeography of the ecosystems of the healthy human body.

PubMed

Zhou, Yanjiao; Gao, Hongyu; Mihindukulasuriya, Kathie A; La Rosa, Patricio S; Wylie, Kristine M; Vishnivetskaya, Tatiana; Podar, Mircea; Warner, Barb; Tarr, Phillip I; Nelson, David E; Fortenberry, J Dennis; Holland, Martin J; Burr, Sarah E; Shannon, William D; Sodergren, Erica; Weinstock, George M

2013-01-14

Characterizing the biogeography of the microbiome of healthy humans is essential for understanding microbial associated diseases. Previous studies mainly focused on a single body habitat from a limited set of subjects. Here, we analyzed one of the largest microbiome datasets to date and generated a biogeographical map that annotates the biodiversity, spatial relationships, and temporal stability of 22 habitats from 279 healthy humans. We identified 929 genera from more than 24 million 16S rRNA gene sequences of 22 habitats, and we provide a baseline of inter-subject variation for healthy adults. The oral habitat has the most stable microbiota with the highest alpha diversity, while the skin and vaginal microbiota are less stable and show lower alpha diversity. The level of biodiversity in one habitat is independent of the biodiversity of other habitats in the same individual. The abundances of a given genus at a body site in which it dominates do not correlate with the abundances at body sites where it is not dominant. Additionally, we observed the human microbiota exhibit both cosmopolitan and endemic features. Finally, comparing datasets of different projects revealed a project-based clustering pattern, emphasizing the significance of standardization of metagenomic studies. The data presented here extend the definition of the human microbiome by providing a more complete and accurate picture of human microbiome biogeography, addressing questions best answered by a large dataset of subjects and body sites that are deeply sampled by sequencing.

Biogeography of the ecosystems of the healthy human body

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Characterizing the biogeography of the microbiome of healthy humans is essential for understanding microbial associated diseases. Previous studies mainly focused on a single body habitat from a limited set of subjects. Here, we analyzed one of the largest microbiome datasets to date and generated a biogeographical map that annotates the biodiversity, spatial relationships, and temporal stability of 22 habitats from 279 healthy humans. Results We identified 929 genera from more than 24 million 16S rRNA gene sequences of 22 habitats, and we provide a baseline of inter-subject variation for healthy adults. The oral habitat has the most stable microbiota with the highest alpha diversity, while the skin and vaginal microbiota are less stable and show lower alpha diversity. The level of biodiversity in one habitat is independent of the biodiversity of other habitats in the same individual. The abundances of a given genus at a body site in which it dominates do not correlate with the abundances at body sites where it is not dominant. Additionally, we observed the human microbiota exhibit both cosmopolitan and endemic features. Finally, comparing datasets of different projects revealed a project-based clustering pattern, emphasizing the significance of standardization of metagenomic studies. Conclusions The data presented here extend the definition of the human microbiome by providing a more complete and accurate picture of human microbiome biogeography, addressing questions best answered by a large dataset of subjects and body sites that are deeply sampled by sequencing. PMID:23316946

An Investigation on Ground Electrodes of Capacitive Coupling Human Body Communication.

PubMed

Mao, Jingna; Yang, Huazhong; Zhao, Bo

2017-08-01

Utilizing the body surface as the signal transmission medium, capacitive coupling human body communication (CC-HBC) can achieve a much higher energy efficiency than conventional wireless communications in future wireless body area network (WBAN) applications. Under the CC-HBC scheme, the body surface serves as the forward signal path, whereas the backward path is formed by the capacitive coupling between the ground electrodes (GEs) of transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX). So the type of communication benefits from a low forward loss, while the backward loss depending on the GE coupling strength dominates the total transmission loss. However, none of the previous works have shown a complete research on the effects of GEs. In this paper, all kinds of GE effects on CC-HBC are investigated by both finite element method (FEM) analysis and human body measurement. We set the TX GE and RX GE at different heights, separation distances, and dimensions to study the corresponding influence on the overall signal transmission path loss. In addition, we also investigate the effects of GEs with different shapes and different TX-to-RX relative angles. Based on all the investigations, an analytical model is derived to evaluate the GE related variations of channel loss in CC-HBC.

A Study to Investigate the Sleeping Comfort of Mattress using Finite Element Method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yoshida, Hiroaki; Kamijo, Masayoshi; Shimizu, Yoshio

Sleep is an essential physiological activity for human beings and many studies have so far investigated sleeping comfort of mattresses. The appropriate measurement of stress distribution within the human body would provide valuable information to us. For the appropriate measurement to estimate stress distribution within the human body, numerical analysis is considered one of the most desirable techniques, and Finite Element Method (FEM), which is widely accepted as a useful numerical technique, was utilized in this study. Since human body dimensions have individual differences, however, it is presumed that the way of the internal stress distribution also changes due to the differences and that the mattress preference varies among different body forms. Thus, we developed three human FEM models reproducing the body forms of three types of male subjects, and investigated the sleeping comfort of mattress based on the relationship between FEM analysis findings and sensory testing results. In comparison with the results of both FEM analysis and sensory testing in the neck region, we found, the sensory testing results corresponded to the FEM analysis findings, and it was possible to estimate subjects' preferences of mattress and comfort in the neck region using the FEM analysis. In this study, we believe, the FEM analysis managed to quantify the subjects' preferences for mattress and to prove itself that it is the valuable tools to examine the sleeping comfort of mattress.

Traditional and New Enhancing Human Cybernetic and Nanotechnological Body Modification Technologies: A Comparative Study of Roman Catholic and Transhumanist Ethical Approaches

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Caligiuri, Michael J.

Advances in cybernetic and nanotechnological body modifications currently allow for enhancements to human physical and mental function which exceed human species-based norms. This thesis examines body modification and human enhancement from two perspectives---Roman Catholicism and Transhumanism--- in order to contribute to bioethical deliberations regarding enhancement technologies. Roman Catholicism has a longstanding tradition of bioethical discourse, informing the healthcare directives of Roman Catholic institutions. Transhumanism is more recent movement that endorses body modifications and human enhancements as a means of individual betterment and social evolution. The thesis first considers definitions of human enhancement and levels of normalcy in connection to cybernetic and nanotechnological bionic implants, and outlines a series of criteria to assess a technology's potential bioethical acceptability: implantability, permanency, power, and public interaction. The thesis then describes Roman Catholicism's response to non-enhancing decorative body modifications (cosmetic surgeries, common decorative modifications such as tattoos and piercings, and uncommon modifications such as scarifications and brandings) in order to establish a basis for possible Roman Catholic responses to enhancing cybernetic and nanotechnological modifications. This is followed by an analysis from a Roman Catholic perspective of the major social issues brought forward by enhancement technologies: commodification, eugenics, vulnerability, and distributive justice. Turning to Transhumanism, the thesis describes the origins and philosophy of the movement, and then discusses the bioethical principles it advances with regard to human enhancement. The thesis concludes by locating points of convergence between Transhumanism and Roman Catholicism that could be the basis of more widely accepted ethical guidelines regarding modification technologies.

Comparison of organ dose and dose equivalent using ray tracing of male and female Voxel phantoms to space flight phantom torso data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Myung-Hee; Qualls, Garry; Slaba, Tony; Cucinotta, Francis A.

Phantom torso experiments have been flown on the space shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) providing validation data for radiation transport models of organ dose and dose equivalents. We describe results for space radiation organ doses using a new human geometry model based on detailed Voxel phantoms models denoted for males and females as MAX (Male Adult voXel) and Fax (Female Adult voXel), respectively. These models represent the human body with much higher fidelity than the CAMERA model currently used at NASA. The MAX and FAX models were implemented for the evaluation of directional body shielding mass for over 1500 target points of major organs. Radiation exposure to solar particle events (SPE), trapped protons, and galactic cosmic rays (GCR) were assessed at each specific site in the human body by coupling space radiation transport models with the detailed body shielding mass of MAX/FAX phantom. The development of multiple-point body-shielding distributions at each organ site made it possible to estimate the mean and variance of space dose equivalents at the specific organ. For the estimate of doses to the blood forming organs (BFOs), active marrow distributions in adult were accounted at bone marrow sites over the human body. We compared the current model results to space shuttle and ISS phantom torso experiments and to calculations using the CAMERA model.

Comparison of Organ Dose and Dose Equivalent Using Ray Tracing of Male and Female Voxel Phantoms to Space Flight Phantom Torso Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kim, Myung-Hee Y.; Qualls, Garry D.; Cucinotta, Francis A.

2008-01-01

Phantom torso experiments have been flown on the space shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) providing validation data for radiation transport models of organ dose and dose equivalents. We describe results for space radiation organ doses using a new human geometry model based on detailed Voxel phantoms models denoted for males and females as MAX (Male Adult voXel) and Fax (Female Adult voXel), respectively. These models represent the human body with much higher fidelity than the CAMERA model currently used at NASA. The MAX and FAX models were implemented for the evaluation of directional body shielding mass for over 1500 target points of major organs. Radiation exposure to solar particle events (SPE), trapped protons, and galactic cosmic rays (GCR) were assessed at each specific site in the human body by coupling space radiation transport models with the detailed body shielding mass of MAX/FAX phantom. The development of multiple-point body-shielding distributions at each organ site made it possible to estimate the mean and variance of space dose equivalents at the specific organ. For the estimate of doses to the blood forming organs (BFOs), active marrow distributions in adult were accounted at bone marrow sites over the human body. We compared the current model results to space shuttle and ISS phantom torso experiments and to calculations using the CAMERA model.

Integrating Cellular Metabolism into a Multiscale Whole-Body Model

PubMed Central

Krauss, Markus; Schaller, Stephan; Borchers, Steffen; Findeisen, Rolf; Lippert, Jörg; Kuepfer, Lars

2012-01-01

Cellular metabolism continuously processes an enormous range of external compounds into endogenous metabolites and is as such a key element in human physiology. The multifaceted physiological role of the metabolic network fulfilling the catalytic conversions can only be fully understood from a whole-body perspective where the causal interplay of the metabolic states of individual cells, the surrounding tissue and the whole organism are simultaneously considered. We here present an approach relying on dynamic flux balance analysis that allows the integration of metabolic networks at the cellular scale into standardized physiologically-based pharmacokinetic models at the whole-body level. To evaluate our approach we integrated a genome-scale network reconstruction of a human hepatocyte into the liver tissue of a physiologically-based pharmacokinetic model of a human adult. The resulting multiscale model was used to investigate hyperuricemia therapy, ammonia detoxification and paracetamol-induced toxication at a systems level. The specific models simultaneously integrate multiple layers of biological organization and offer mechanistic insights into pathology and medication. The approach presented may in future support a mechanistic understanding in diagnostics and drug development. PMID:23133351

[Quantitative measures for assessing the functional state of the human body during diagnostic procedure].

PubMed

Artemenko, M V

2008-01-01

Two approaches to calculation of the qualitative measures for assessing the functional state level of human body are considered. These approaches are based on image and fuzzy set recognition theories and are used to construct diagnostic decision rules. The first approach uses the data on deviation of detected parameters from those for healthy persons; the second approach analyzes the degree of deviation of detected parameters from the approximants characterizing the correlation differences between the parameters. A method for synthesis of decision rules and the results of blood count-based research for a number of diseases (hemophilia, thrombocytopathy, hypertension, arrhythmia, hepatic cirrhosis, trichophytia) are considered. An effect of a change in the functional link between the cholesterol content in blood and the relative rate of variation of AST and ALT enzymes in blood from direct proportional (healthy state) to inverse proportional (hepatic cirrhosis) is discussed. It is shown that analysis of correlation changes in detected parameters of the human body state during diagnostic process is more effective for application in decision support systems than the state space analysis.

Monitoring activities of daily living based on wearable wireless body sensor network.

PubMed

Kańtoch, E; Augustyniak, P; Markiewicz, M; Prusak, D

2014-01-01

With recent advances in microprocessor chip technology, wireless communication, and biomedical engineering it is possible to develop miniaturized ubiquitous health monitoring devices that are capable of recording physiological and movement signals during daily life activities. The aim of the research is to implement and test the prototype of health monitoring system. The system consists of the body central unit with Bluetooth module and wearable sensors: the custom-designed ECG sensor, the temperature sensor, the skin humidity sensor and accelerometers placed on the human body or integrated with clothes and a network gateway to forward data to a remote medical server. The system includes custom-designed transmission protocol and remote web-based graphical user interface for remote real time data analysis. Experimental results for a group of humans who performed various activities (eg. working, running, etc.) showed maximum 5% absolute error compared to certified medical devices. The results are promising and indicate that developed wireless wearable monitoring system faces challenges of multi-sensor human health monitoring during performing daily activities and opens new opportunities in developing novel healthcare services.

Model of Emotional Expressions in Movements

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rozaliev, Vladimir L.; Orlova, Yulia A.

2013-01-01

This paper presents a new approach to automated identification of human emotions based on analysis of body movements, a recognition of gestures and poses. Methodology, models and automated system for emotion identification are considered. To characterize the person emotions in the model, body movements are described with linguistic variables and a…

Adolescents, Health Education, and Computers: The Body Awareness Resource Network (BARN).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bosworth, Kris; And Others

1983-01-01

The Body Awareness Resource Network (BARN) is a computer-based system designed as a confidential, nonjudgmental source of health information for adolescents. Topics include alcohol and other drugs, diet and activity, family communication, human sexuality, smoking, and stress management; programs are available for high school and middle school…

Predictive dose-based estimation of systemic exposure multiples in mouse and monkey relative to human for antisense oligonucleotides with 2'-o-(2-methoxyethyl) modifications.

PubMed

Yu, Rosie Z; Grundy, John S; Henry, Scott P; Kim, Tae-Won; Norris, Daniel A; Burkey, Jennifer; Wang, Yanfeng; Vick, Andrew; Geary, Richard S

2015-01-20

Evaluation of species differences and systemic exposure multiples (or ratios) in toxicological animal species versus human is an ongoing exercise during the course of drug development. The systemic exposure ratios are best estimated by directly comparing area under the plasma concentration-time curves (AUCs), and sometimes by comparing the dose administered, with the dose being adjusted either by body surface area (BSA) or body weight (BW). In this study, the association between AUC ratio and the administered dose ratio from animals to human were studied using a retrospective data-driven approach. The dataset included nine antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) with 2'-O-(2-methoxyethyl) modifications, evaluated in two animal species (mouse and monkey) following single and repeated parenteral administrations. We found that plasma AUCs were similar between ASOs within the same species, and are predictable to human exposure using a single animal species, either mouse or monkey. Between monkey and human, the plasma exposure ratio can be predicted directly based on BW-adjusted dose ratios, whereas between mouse and human, the exposure ratio would be nearly fivefold lower in mouse compared to human based on BW-adjusted dose values. Thus, multiplying a factor of 5 for the mouse BW-adjusted dose would likely provide a reasonable AUC exposure estimate in human at steady-state.

Comparison of two approaches for calculation of the geometric and inertial characteristics of the human body of the Bulgarian population.

PubMed

Nikolova, Gergana; Toshev, Yuli

2008-01-01

On the basis of a representative anthropological investigation of 5290 individuals (2435 males and 2855 females) of the Bulgarian population at the age of 30-40 years (Yordanov et al. [1]) we proposed a 3D biomechanical model of human body of the average Bulgarian male and female and compared two different possible approaches to calculate analytically and to evaluate numerically the corresponding geometric and inertial characteristics of all the segments of the body. In the framework of the first approach, we calculated the positions of the centres of mass of the segments of human body as well as their inertial characteristics merely by using the initial original anthropometrical data, while in the second approach we adjusted the data by using the method based on regression equations. Wherever possible, we presented a comparison of our data with those available in the literature on other Caucasians and determined in which cases the use of which approach is more reliable.

Modeling the human body shape in bioimpedance vector measurements.

PubMed

Kim, Chul-Hyun; Park, Jae-Hyeon; Kim, Hyeoijin; Chung, Sochung; Park, Seung-Hun

2010-01-01

Human body shape, called somatotype, has described physique of humans in health and sports applications, relating anthropometric measurements to fatness, muscularity and linearity in a structured way. Here we propose a new method based on bioelectric impedance vector analysis (BIVA) of R/H and Xc/H to represent the cross-sectional area and the body cell mass in a given surface area (m(2)) respectively. Data from six gymnasts, ten dancers, and five fashion models, groups whose physiques and BMI ranges were distinct from one another, were measured for somatotype and BIVA. The models had highest values of the R/H and gymnasts the lowest. Xc/H was lower in models than in the dancers and gymnasts (p < 0.05). Phase angle was lowest in the models and highest in gymnasts significantly (p < 0.05). Pattern analysis from BIVA corresponded to the calculated anthropometric somatotype supporting the hypothesis that BIA's resistance (R) and reactance (Xc) are meaningful discriminates of body size and function which relate to physique in a purposive way.

A shortage of cadavers: The predicament of regional anatomy education in mainland China.

PubMed

Chen, Dan; Zhang, Qi; Deng, Jing; Cai, Yan; Huang, Jufang; Li, Fang; Xiong, Kun

2018-04-12

Both in mainland China and around the world, regional anatomy stands as one of the most important basic science courses in medical school curricula. As such, dissection of human cadavers and use of prosected specimens remains the most essential teaching method in anatomy education. However, medical educators have raised increasing concerns about an ongoing shortage of cadavers for medical use in mainland China, a problem which may seriously limit the future development of human anatomy education. Based on a survey on cadaver usage in anatomy education in mainland China, this study found that the cadaver resources of most given medical schools in mainland China are associated with their geographic location, academic ranking, and local support for body donation policies. Effective measures to alleviate this shortage of cadavers may include future efforts to promote national-level body donation legislation, broader acceptance of body donation among Chinese citizens, and an efficient and humane protocol for body donation. Anat Sci Educ. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.

Theory review and interaction design space of body image and body schema (BIBS) for embodied cognition in virtual reality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tong, Xin; Gromala, Diane; Shaw, Chris D.; Williamson, Owen; Iscen, Ozgun E.

2015-03-01

Body image/body schema (BIBS) is within the larger realm of embodied cognition. Its interdisciplinary literature can inspire Virtual Reality (VR) researchers and designers to develop novel ideas and provide them with approaches to human perception and experience. In this paper, we introduced six fundamental ideas in designing interactions in VR, derived from BIBS literature that demonstrates how the mind is embodied. We discuss our own research, ranging from two mature works to a prototype, to support explorations VR interaction design from a BIBS approach. Based on our experiences, we argue that incorporating ideas of embodiment into design practices requires a shift in the perspective or understanding of the human body, perception and experiences, all of which affect interaction design in unique ways. The dynamic, interactive and distributed understanding of cognition guides our approach to interaction design, where the interrelatedness and plasticity of BIBS play a crucial role.

Investigation and Modeling of Capacitive Human Body Communication.

PubMed

Zhu, Xiao-Qi; Guo, Yong-Xin; Wu, Wen

2017-04-01

This paper presents a systematic investigation of the capacitive human body communication (HBC). The measurement of HBC channels is performed using a novel battery-powered system to eliminate the effects of baluns, cables and instruments. To verify the measured results, a numerical model incorporating the entire HBC system is established. Besides, it is demonstrated that both the impedance and path gain bandwidths of HBC channels is affected by the electrode configuration. Based on the analysis of the simulated electric field distribution, an equivalent circuit model is proposed and the circuit parameters are extracted using the finite element method. The transmission capability along the human body is also studied. The simulated results using the numerical and circuit models coincide very well with the measurement, which demonstrates that the proposed circuit model can effectively interpret the operation mechanism of the capacitive HBC.

An Analysis of the Educational Value of Low-Fidelity Anatomy Models as External Representations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chan, Lap Ki; Cheng, Maurice M. W.

2011-01-01

Although high-fidelity digital models of human anatomy based on actual cross-sectional images of the human body have been developed, reports on the use of physical models in anatomy teaching continue to appear. This article aims to examine the common features shared by these physical models and analyze their educational value based on the…

Whole-body to tissue concentration ratios for use in biota dose assessments for animals.

PubMed

Yankovich, Tamara L; Beresford, Nicholas A; Wood, Michael D; Aono, Tasuo; Andersson, Pål; Barnett, Catherine L; Bennett, Pamela; Brown, Justin E; Fesenko, Sergey; Fesenko, J; Hosseini, Ali; Howard, Brenda J; Johansen, Mathew P; Phaneuf, Marcel M; Tagami, Keiko; Takata, Hyoe; Twining, John R; Uchida, Shigeo

2010-11-01

Environmental monitoring programs often measure contaminant concentrations in animal tissues consumed by humans (e.g., muscle). By comparison, demonstration of the protection of biota from the potential effects of radionuclides involves a comparison of whole-body doses to radiological dose benchmarks. Consequently, methods for deriving whole-body concentration ratios based on tissue-specific data are required to make best use of the available information. This paper provides a series of look-up tables with whole-body:tissue-specific concentration ratios for non-human biota. Focus was placed on relatively broad animal categories (including molluscs, crustaceans, freshwater fishes, marine fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) and commonly measured tissues (specifically, bone, muscle, liver and kidney). Depending upon organism, whole-body to tissue concentration ratios were derived for between 12 and 47 elements. The whole-body to tissue concentration ratios can be used to estimate whole-body concentrations from tissue-specific measurements. However, we recommend that any given whole-body to tissue concentration ratio should not be used if the value falls between 0.75 and 1.5. Instead, a value of one should be assumed.

Physics-based Simulation of Human Posture Using 3D Whole Body Scanning Technology for Astronaut Space Suit Evaluation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kim, Kyu-Jung

2005-01-01

Over the past few years high precision three-dimensional (3D) full body laser scanners have been developed to be used as a powerful anthropometry tool for quantification of the morphology of the human body. The full body scanner can quickly extract body characteristics in non-contact fashion. It is required for the Anthropometry and Biomechanics Facility (ABF) to have capabilities for kinematics simulation of a digital human at various postures whereas the laser scanner only allows capturing a single static posture at each time. During this summer fellowship period a theoretical study has been conducted to estimate an arbitrary posture with a series of example postures through finite element (FE) approximation and found that four-point isoparametric FE approximation would result in reasonable maximum position errors less than 5%. Subsequent pilot scan experiments demonstrated that a bead marker with a nominal size of 6 mm could be used as a marker for digitizing 3-D coordinates of anatomical landmarks for further kinematic analysis. Two sessions of human subject testing were conducted for reconstruction of an arbitrary postures from a set of example postures for each joint motion for the forearm/hand complex and the whole upper extremity.

Mental rotation and the human body: Children's inflexible use of embodiment mirrors that of adults.

PubMed

Krüger, Markus; Ebersbach, Mirjam

2017-12-25

Adults' mental rotation performance with body-like stimuli is enhanced if these stimuli are anatomically compatible with a human body, but decreased by anatomically incompatible stimuli. In this study, we investigated these effects for kindergartners and first-graders: When asked to mentally rotate cube configurations attached with human body parts in an anatomically compatible way, allowing for the projection of a human body, children performed better than with pure cube combinations. By contrast, when body parts were attached in an anatomically incompatible way, disallowing the projection of a human body, children performed worse than with pure combinations. This experiment is of specific interest against the background of two different theoretical approaches concerning imagery and the motor system in development: One approach assumes an increasing integration of motor processes and imagery over time that enables older children and adults to requisition motor resources for imagery processes, while the other postulates that imagery stems from early sensorimotor processes in the first place, and is disentangled from it over time. The finding that children of the two age groups tested show exactly the same effects as adults when mentally rotating anatomically compatible and incompatible stimuli is interpreted in favour of the latter approach. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? In mental rotation, adults perform better when rotating anatomically possible stimuli as compared to rotating standard cube combinations. Performance is worse when rotating anatomically impossible stimuli. What does this study add? The present study shows that children's mental transformations mirror those of adults in these respects. In case of the anatomically impossible stimuli, this highlights an inflexible use of embodiment in both age groups. This is in line with the Piagetian assumption of imagery being based on sensorimotor processes. © 2017 The British Psychological Society.

A learning-based markerless approach for full-body kinematics estimation in-natura from a single image.

PubMed

Drory, Ami; Li, Hongdong; Hartley, Richard

2017-04-11

We present a supervised machine learning approach for markerless estimation of human full-body kinematics for a cyclist from an unconstrained colour image. This approach is motivated by the limitations of existing marker-based approaches restricted by infrastructure, environmental conditions, and obtrusive markers. By using a discriminatively learned mixture-of-parts model, we construct a probabilistic tree representation to model the configuration and appearance of human body joints. During the learning stage, a Structured Support Vector Machine (SSVM) learns body parts appearance and spatial relations. In the testing stage, the learned models are employed to recover body pose via searching in a test image over a pyramid structure. We focus on the movement modality of cycling to demonstrate the efficacy of our approach. In natura estimation of cycling kinematics using images is challenging because of human interaction with a bicycle causing frequent occlusions. We make no assumptions in relation to the kinematic constraints of the model, nor the appearance of the scene. Our technique finds multiple quality hypotheses for the pose. We evaluate the precision of our method on two new datasets using loss functions. Our method achieves a score of 91.1 and 69.3 on mean Probability of Correct Keypoint (PCK) measure and 88.7 and 66.1 on the Average Precision of Keypoints (APK) measure for the frontal and sagittal datasets respectively. We conclude that our method opens new vistas to robust user-interaction free estimation of full body kinematics, a prerequisite to motion analysis. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Localization of firearm projectiles in the human body using a superconducting quantum interference device magnetometer: A theoretical study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hall Barbosa, C.

2004-06-01

A technique had been previously developed, based on magnetic field measurements using a superconducting quantum interference device sensor, to localize in three dimensions steel needles lost in the human body. In all six cases that were treated until now, the technique allowed easy surgical localization of the needles with high accuracy. The technique decreases, by a large factor, the surgery time for foreign body extraction, and also reduces the generally high odds of failure. The method is accurate, noninvasive, and innocuous, and with clear clinical importance. Despite the importance of needle localization, the most prevalent foreign body in the modern society is the firearm projectile (bullet), generally composed of lead, a paramagnetic material, thus not presenting a remanent magnetic field as steel needles do. On the other hand, since lead is a good conductor, eddy current detection techniques can be employed, by applying an alternating magnetic field with the aid of excitation coils. The primary field induces eddy currents on the lead, which in turn generate a secondary magnetic field that can be detected by a magnetometer, and give information about position and volume of the conducting foreign body. In this article we present a theoretical study for the development of a localization technique for lead bullets inside the human body. Initially, we present a model for the secondary magnetic field generated by the bullet, given a known applied field. After that, we study possible excitation systems, and propose a localization algorithm based on the detected magnetic field.

Advancing the sexual and reproductive health and human rights of women living with HIV: a review of UN, regional and national human rights norms and standards

PubMed Central

Khosla, Rajat; Van Belle, Nuna; Temmerman, Marleen

2015-01-01

Introduction The right to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is an essential part of the right to health and is dependent upon substantive equality, including freedom from multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that result in exclusion in both law and practice. Nonetheless, general and specific SRH needs of women living with HIV are often not adequately addressed. For example, services that women living with HIV need may not be available or may have multiple barriers, in particular stigma and discrimination. This study was conducted to review United Nations Human Rights Council, Treaty Monitoring Bodies and Special Rapporteur reports and regional and national mechanisms regarding SRH issues of women living with HIV. The objective is to assess areas of progress, as well as gaps, in relation to health and human rights considerations in the work of these normative bodies on health and human rights. Methods The review was done using keywords of international, regional and national jurisprudence on findings covering the 2000 to 2014 period for documents in English; searches for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and national judgments were also conducted in Spanish. Jurisprudence of UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies, regional mechanisms and national bodies was considered in this regard. Results and discussion In total, 236 findings were identified using the search strategy, and of these 129 were selected for review based on the inclusion criteria. The results highlight that while jurisprudence from international, regional and national bodies reflects consideration of some health and human rights issues related to women living with HIV and SRH, the approach of these bodies has been largely ad hoc and lacks a systematic integration of human rights concerns of women living with HIV in relation to SRH. Most findings relate to non-discrimination, accessibility, informed decision-making and accountability. There are critical gaps on normative standards regarding the human rights of women living with HIV in relation to SRH. Conclusions A systematic approach to health and human rights considerations related to women living with HIV and SRH by international, regional and national bodies is needed to advance the agenda and ensure that policies and programmes related to SRH systematically take into account the health and human rights of women living with HIV. PMID:26643455

Advancing the sexual and reproductive health and human rights of women living with HIV: a review of UN, regional and national human rights norms and standards.

PubMed

Khosla, Rajat; Van Belle, Nuna; Temmerman, Marleen

2015-01-01

The right to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is an essential part of the right to health and is dependent upon substantive equality, including freedom from multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that result in exclusion in both law and practice. Nonetheless, general and specific SRH needs of women living with HIV are often not adequately addressed. For example, services that women living with HIV need may not be available or may have multiple barriers, in particular stigma and discrimination. This study was conducted to review United Nations Human Rights Council, Treaty Monitoring Bodies and Special Rapporteur reports and regional and national mechanisms regarding SRH issues of women living with HIV. The objective is to assess areas of progress, as well as gaps, in relation to health and human rights considerations in the work of these normative bodies on health and human rights. The review was done using keywords of international, regional and national jurisprudence on findings covering the 2000 to 2014 period for documents in English; searches for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and national judgments were also conducted in Spanish. Jurisprudence of UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies, regional mechanisms and national bodies was considered in this regard. In total, 236 findings were identified using the search strategy, and of these 129 were selected for review based on the inclusion criteria. The results highlight that while jurisprudence from international, regional and national bodies reflects consideration of some health and human rights issues related to women living with HIV and SRH, the approach of these bodies has been largely ad hoc and lacks a systematic integration of human rights concerns of women living with HIV in relation to SRH. Most findings relate to non-discrimination, accessibility, informed decision-making and accountability. There are critical gaps on normative standards regarding the human rights of women living with HIV in relation to SRH. A systematic approach to health and human rights considerations related to women living with HIV and SRH by international, regional and national bodies is needed to advance the agenda and ensure that policies and programmes related to SRH systematically take into account the health and human rights of women living with HIV.

Interventional procedure based on nanorobots propelled and steered by flagellated magnetotactic bacteria for direct targeting of tumors in the human body.

PubMed

Martel, Sylvain; Felfoul, Ouajdi; Mohammadi, Mahmood; Mathieu, Jean-Baptiste

2008-01-01

Flagellated bacteria used as bio-actuators may prove to be efficient propulsion mechanisms for future hybrid medical nanorobots when operating in the microvasculature. Here, we briefly describe a medical interventional procedure where flagellated bacteria and more specifically MC-1 Magnetotactic Bacteria (MTB) can be used to propel and steer micro-devices and nanorobots under computer control to reach remote locations in the human body. In particular, we show through experimental results the potential of using MTB-tagged robots to deliver therapeutic agents to tumors even the ones located in deep regions of the human body. We also show that such bacterial nanorobots can be tracked inside the human body for enhanced targeting under computer guidance using MRI as imaging modality. MTB can not only be guided and controlled directly towards a specific target, but we also show experimentally that these flagellated bacterial nanorobots can be propelled and steered in vivo deeply through the interstitial region of a tumor. The targeting efficacy is increased when combined with larger ferromagnetic micro-carriers being propelled by magnetic gradients generated by a MRI platform to carry and release nanorobots propelled by a single flagellated bacterium near the arteriocapillar entry. Based on the experimental data obtained and the experience gathered during several experiments conducted in vivo with this new approach, a general medical interventional procedure is briefly described here in a biomedical engineering context.

Precise determination of anthropometric dimensions by means of image processing methods for estimating human body segment parameter values.

PubMed

Baca, A

1996-04-01

A method has been developed for the precise determination of anthropometric dimensions from the video images of four different body configurations. High precision is achieved by incorporating techniques for finding the location of object boundaries with sub-pixel accuracy, the implementation of calibration algorithms, and by taking into account the varying distances of the body segments from the recording camera. The system allows automatic segment boundary identification from the video image, if the boundaries are marked on the subject by black ribbons. In connection with the mathematical finite-mass-element segment model of Hatze, body segment parameters (volumes, masses, the three principal moments of inertia, the three local coordinates of the segmental mass centers etc.) can be computed by using the anthropometric data determined videometrically as input data. Compared to other, recently published video-based systems for the estimation of the inertial properties of body segments, the present algorithms reduce errors originating from optical distortions, inaccurate edge-detection procedures, and user-specified upper and lower segment boundaries or threshold levels for the edge-detection. The video-based estimation of human body segment parameters is especially useful in situations where ease of application and rapid availability of comparatively precise parameter values are of importance.

The first steps towards a de minimus, affordable NEA exploration architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Landis, Rob R.; Abell, Paul A.; Adamo, Daniel R.; Barbee, Brent W.; Johnson, Lindley N.

2013-03-01

The impetus for asteroid exploration is scientific, political, and pragmatic. The notion of sending human explorers to asteroids is not new. Piloted missions to these primitive bodies were first discussed in the 1960s, pairing Saturn V rockets with enhanced Apollo spacecraft to explore what were then called "Earth-approaching asteroids." Two decades ago, NASA's Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) also briefly examined the possibility of visiting these small celestial bodies. Most recently, the US Human Space Flight Review Committee (the second Augustine Commission) suggested that near-Earth objects (NEOs) represent a target-rich environment for exploration via the "Flexible Path" option. However, prior to seriously considering human missions to NEOs, it has become clear that we currently lack a robust catalog of human-accessible targets. The majority of the known NEOs identified by a study team across several NASA centers as "human-accessible" are probably too small and have orbits that are too uncertain to consider mounting piloted expeditions to these small worlds. The first step in developing a comprehensive catalog is, therefore, to complete a space-based NEO survey. The resulting catalog of candidate NEOs would then be transformed into a matrix of opportunities for robotic and human missions for the next several decades and shared with the international community. This initial step of a space-based NEO survey is therefore the linchpin to laying the foundation of a low-risk architecture to venture out and explore these primitive bodies. We suggest such a minimalist framework architecture from (1) extensive ground-based and precursor spacecraft investigations (while applying operational knowledge from science-driven robotic missions), (2) astronaut servicing of spacecraft operating at geosynchronous Earth orbit to retain essential skills and experience, and (3) applying the sum of these skills, knowledge and experience to piloted missions to NEOs.

A Low Risk Strategy for the Exploration of Near-Earth Objects

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Landis, Rob R.

2011-01-01

The impetus for asteroid exploration is scientific, political, and pragmatic. The notion of sending human explorers to asteroids is not new. Piloted missions to these primitive bodies were first discussed in the 1960s, pairing Saturn V rockets with enhanced Apollo spacecraft to explore what were then called "Earth-approaching asteroids." Two decades ago, NASA's Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) also briefly examined the possibility of visiting these small celestial bodies. Most recently, the U.S. Human Space Flight Review Committee (the second Augustine Commission) suggested that near-Earth objects (NEOs) represent a target-rich environment for exploration via the "Flexible Path" option. However, prior to seriously considering human missions to NEOs, it has become clear that we currently lack a robust catalog of human accessible targets. The majority of the NEOs identified by a study team across several NASA centers as "human-accessible" are probably too small and have orbits that are too uncertain to consider mounting piloted expeditions to these small worlds. The first step in developing such a catalog is, therefore, to complete a space-based NEO survey. The resulting catalog of candidate NEOs would then be transformed into a matrix of opportunities for robotic and human missions for the next several decades. This initial step of a space-based NEO survey first is the linchpin to laying the foundation of a low-risk architecture to venture out and explore these primitive bodies. We suggest such a minimalist framework architecture from 1) extensive ground-based and precursor spacecraft investigations (while applying operational knowledge from science-driven robotic missions), 2) astronaut servicing of spacecraft operating at geosynchronous Earth orbit to retain essential skills and experience, and 3) applying the sum of these skills, knowledge and experience to piloted missions to NEOs.

Analysis of SAR distribution in human head of antenna used in wireless power transform based on magnetic resonance.

PubMed

Gong, Feixiang; Wei, Zhiqiang; Cong, Yanping; Chi, Haokun; Yin, Bo; Sun, Mingui

2017-07-20

In this paper, a novel wireless power transfer antenna system was designed for human head implantable devices. The antenna system used the structure of three plates and four coils and operated at low frequencies to transfer power via near field. In order to verify the electromagnetic radiation safety on the human head, the electromagnetic intensity and specific absorption rate (SAR) were studied by finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) method. A three-layer model of human head including skin, bone and brain tissues was constructed. The transmitting and receiving antenna were set outside and inside the model. The local and average SAR were simulated at the resonance frequency of 18.67 MHz in two situations, in one scenario both transmitting and receiving coil worked, while in the other scenario only the transmitting coil worked. The results showed that the maximum of 10 g SAR average value of human thoracic were 0.142 W/kg and 0.148 W/kg, respectively, both were lower than the international safety standards for human body of the ICNIRP and FCC, which verified the safety of the human body in wireless power transmission based on magnetic coupling resonance.

Cadmium transfer from contaminated soils to the human body through rice consumption in southern Jiangsu Province, China.

PubMed

Li, Tianyuan; Chang, Qing; Yuan, Xuyin; Li, Jizhou; Ayoko, Godwin A; Frost, Ray L; Chen, Hongyan; Zhang, Xinjian; Song, Yinxian; Song, Wenzhi

2017-06-21

Consumption of crops grown in cadmium-contaminated soils is an important Cd exposure route to humans. The present study utilizes statistical analysis and in vitro digestion experiments to uncover the transfer processes of Cd from soils to the human body through rice consumption. Here, a model was created to predict the levels of bioaccessible Cd in rice grains using phytoavailable Cd quantities in the soil. During the in vitro digestion, a relatively constant ratio between the total and bioaccessible Cd in rice was observed. About 14.89% of Cd in soils was found to be transferred into rice grains and up to 3.19% could be transferred from rice grains to the human body. This model was able to sufficiently predict rice grain cadmium concentrations based on CaCl 2 extracted zinc and cadmium concentrations in soils (R 2 = 0.862). The bioaccessible Cd concentration in rice grains was also able to be predicted using CaCl 2 extracted cadmium from soil (R 2 = 0.892). The models established in this study demonstrated that CaCl 2 is a suitable indicator of total rice Cd concentrations and bioaccessible rice grain Cd concentrations. The chain model approach proposed in this study can be used for the fast and accurate evaluation of human Cd exposure through rice consumption based on the soil conditions in contaminated regions.

An exploration of the biomedical optics course construction of undergraduate biomedical engineering program in medical colleges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, Shijun; Lyu, Jie; Zhang, Peiming

2017-08-01

In this paper, the teaching goals, teaching contents and teaching methods in biomedical optics course construction are discussed. From the dimension of teaching goals, students should master the principle of optical inspection on the human body, diagnosis and treatment of methodology and instruments, through the study of the theory and practice of this course, and can utilize biomedical optics methods to solve practical problems in the clinical medical engineering practice. From the dimension of teaching contents, based on the characteristics of biomedical engineering in medical colleges, the organic integration of engineering aspects, medical optical instruments, and biomedical aspects dispersed in human anatomy, human physiology, clinical medicine fundamental related to the biomedical optics is build. Noninvasive measurement of the human body composition and noninvasive optical imaging of the human body were taken as actual problems in biomedical optics fields. Typical medical applications such as eye optics and laser medicine were also integrated into the theory and practice teaching. From the dimension of teaching methods, referencing to organ-system based medical teaching mode, optical principle and instrument principle were taught by teachers from school of medical instruments, and the histological characteristics and clinical actual need in areas such as digestive diseases and urinary surgery were taught by teachers from school of basic medicine or clinical medicine of medical colleges. Furthermore, clinical application guidance would be provided by physician and surgeons in hospitals.

Development of Fabric-Based Chemical Gas Sensors for Use as Wearable Electronic Noses

PubMed Central

Seesaard, Thara; Lorwongtragool, Panida; Kerdcharoen, Teerakiat

2015-01-01

Novel gas sensors embroidered into fabric substrates based on polymers/ SWNT-COOH nanocomposites were proposed in this paper, aiming for their use as a wearable electronic nose (e-nose). The fabric-based chemical gas sensors were fabricated by two main processes: drop coating and embroidery. Four potential polymers (PVC, cumene-PSMA, PSE and PVP)/functionalized-SWCNT sensing materials were deposited onto interdigitated electrodes previously prepared by embroidering conductive thread on a fabric substrate to make an optimal set of sensors. After preliminary trials of the obtained sensors, it was found that the sensors yielded a electrical resistance in the region of a few kilo-Ohms. The sensors were tested with various volatile compounds such as ammonium hydroxide, ethanol, pyridine, triethylamine, methanol and acetone, which are commonly found in the wastes released from the human body. These sensors were used to detect and discriminate between the body odors of different regions and exist in various forms such as the urine, armpit and exhaled breath odor. Based on a simple pattern recognition technique, we have shown that the proposed fabric-based chemical gas sensors can discriminate the human body odor from two persons. PMID:25602265

Development of fabric-based chemical gas sensors for use as wearable electronic noses.

PubMed

Seesaard, Thara; Lorwongtragool, Panida; Kerdcharoen, Teerakiat

2015-01-16

Novel gas sensors embroidered into fabric substrates based on polymers/ SWNT-COOH nanocomposites were proposed in this paper, aiming for their use as a wearable electronic nose (e-nose). The fabric-based chemical gas sensors were fabricated by two main processes: drop coating and embroidery. Four potential polymers (PVC, cumene-PSMA, PSE and PVP)/functionalized-SWCNT sensing materials were deposited onto interdigitated electrodes previously prepared by embroidering conductive thread on a fabric substrate to make an optimal set of sensors. After preliminary trials of the obtained sensors, it was found that the sensors yielded a electrical resistance in the region of a few kilo-Ohms. The sensors were tested with various volatile compounds such as ammonium hydroxide, ethanol, pyridine, triethylamine, methanol and acetone, which are commonly found in the wastes released from the human body. These sensors were used to detect and discriminate between the body odors of different regions and exist in various forms such as the urine, armpit and exhaled breath odor. Based on a simple pattern recognition technique, we have shown that the proposed fabric-based chemical gas sensors can discriminate the human body odor from two persons.

Application of postured human model for SAR measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vuchkovikj, M.; Munteanu, I.; Weiland, T.

2013-07-01

In the last two decades, the increasing number of electronic devices used in day-to-day life led to a growing interest in the study of the electromagnetic field interaction with biological tissues. The design of medical devices and wireless communication devices such as mobile phones benefits a lot from the bio-electromagnetic simulations in which digital human models are used. The digital human models currently available have an upright position which limits the research activities in realistic scenarios, where postured human bodies must be considered. For this reason, a software application called "BodyFlex for CST STUDIO SUITE" was developed. In its current version, this application can deform the voxel-based human model named HUGO (Dipp GmbH, 2010) to allow the generation of common postures that people use in normal life, ensuring the continuity of tissues and conserving the mass to an acceptable level. This paper describes the enhancement of the "BodyFlex" application, which is related to the movements of the forearm and the wrist of a digital human model. One of the electromagnetic applications in which the forearm and the wrist movement of a voxel based human model has a significant meaning is the measurement of the specific absorption rate (SAR) when a model is exposed to a radio frequency electromagnetic field produced by a mobile phone. Current SAR measurements of the exposure from mobile phones are performed with the SAM (Specific Anthropomorphic Mannequin) phantom which is filled with a dispersive but homogeneous material. We are interested what happens with the SAR values if a realistic inhomogeneous human model is used. To this aim, two human models, a homogeneous and an inhomogeneous one, in two simulation scenarios are used, in order to examine and observe the differences in the results for the SAR values.

Automatic Gait Recognition for Human ID at a Distance

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-11-01

at the modeling and understanding of human movement through image sequences. The ongoing interest in gait in a biometric is in a large part the wider...2.2 Model -Based Approaches...with Canonical Analysis (CA) [11]. At that stage, only one approach had used a model to analyze leg movement [12] as opposed to using human body shape

An automated method to morph finite element whole-body human models with a wide range of stature and body shape for both men and women.

PubMed

Zhang, Kai; Cao, Libo; Fanta, Abeselom; Reed, Matthew P; Neal, Mark; Wang, Jenne-Tai; Lin, Chin-Hsu; Hu, Jingwen

2017-07-26

Field data analyses have shown that small female, obese, and/or older occupants are at increased risks of death and serious injury in motor-vehicle crashes compared with mid-size young men. The current adult finite element (FE) human models represent occupants in the same three body sizes (large male, mid-size male, and small female) as those for the contemporary adult crash dummies. Further, the time needed to develop an FE human model using the traditional method is measured in months or even years. In the current study, an improved regional mesh morphing method based on landmark-based radial basis function (RBF) interpolation was developed to rapidly morph a mid-size male FE human model into different geometry targets. A total of 100 human models with a wide range of human attributes were generated. A pendulum chest impact condition was applied to each model as an initial assessment of the resulting variability in response. The morphed models demonstrated mesh quality similar to the baseline model. The peak impact forces and chest deflections in the chest pendulum impacts varied substantially with different models, supportive of consideration of population variation in evaluating the occupant injury risks. The method developed in this study will enable future safety design optimizations targeting at various vulnerable populations that cannot be considered with the current models. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Study of the counting efficiency of a WBC setup by using a computational 3D human body library in sitting position based on polygonal mesh surfaces.

PubMed

Fonseca, T C Ferreira; Bogaerts, R; Lebacq, A L; Mihailescu, C L; Vanhavere, F

2014-04-01

A realistic computational 3D human body library, called MaMP and FeMP (Male and Female Mesh Phantoms), based on polygonal mesh surface geometry, has been created to be used for numerical calibration of the whole body counter (WBC) system of the nuclear power plant (NPP) in Doel, Belgium. The main objective was to create flexible computational models varying in gender, body height, and mass for studying the morphology-induced variation of the detector counting efficiency (CE) and reducing the measurement uncertainties. First, the counting room and an HPGe detector were modeled using MCNPX (Monte Carlo radiation transport code). The validation of the model was carried out for different sample-detector geometries with point sources and a physical phantom. Second, CE values were calculated for a total of 36 different mesh phantoms in a seated position using the validated Monte Carlo model. This paper reports on the validation process of the in vivo whole body system and the CE calculated for different body heights and weights. The results reveal that the CE is strongly dependent on the individual body shape, size, and gender and may vary by a factor of 1.5 to 3 depending on the morphology aspects of the individual to be measured.

Development of Highly Sensitive and Specific mRNA Multiplex System (XCYR1) for Forensic Human Body Fluids and Tissues Identification

PubMed Central

Xu, Yan; Xie, Jianhui; Cao, Yu; Zhou, Huaigu; Ping, Yuan; Chen, Liankang; Gu, Lihua; Hu, Wei; Bi, Gang; Ge, Jianye; Chen, Xin; Zhao, Ziqin

2014-01-01

The identification of human body fluids or tissues through mRNA-based profiling is very useful for forensic investigations. Previous studies have shown mRNA biomarkers are effective to identify the origin of biological samples. In this study, we selected 16 tissue specific biomarkers to evaluate their specificities and sensitivities for human body fluids and tissues identification, including porphobilinogen deaminase (PBGD), hemoglobin beta (HBB) and Glycophorin A (GLY) for circulatory blood, protamine 2 (PRM2) and transglutaminase 4 (TGM4) for semen, mucin 4 (MUC4) and human beta defensin 1(HBD1) for vaginal secretion, matrix metalloproteinases 7 and 11 (MMP7 and MMP11) for menstrual blood, keratin 4(KRT4) for oral mucosa, loricrin (LOR) and cystatin 6 (CST6) for skin, histatin 3(HTN3) for saliva, statherin (STATH) for nasal secretion, dermcidin (DCD) for sweat and uromodulin (UMOD) for urine. The above mentioned ten common forensic body fluids or tissues were used in the evaluation. Based on the evaluation, a reverse transcription (RT) PCR multiplex assay, XCYR1, which includes 12 biomarkers (i.e., HBB, GLY, HTN3, PRM2, KRT4, MMP11, MUC4, DCD, UMOD, MMP7, TGM4, and STATH) and 2 housekeeping genes [i.e., glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and 18SrRNA], was developed. This assay was further validated with real casework samples and mock samples (with both single source and mixture) and it was approved that XCYR1 is effective to identify common body fluids or tissues (i.e., circulatory blood, saliva, semen, vaginal secretion, menstrual blood, oral mucosa, nasal secretion, sweat and urine) in forensic casework samples. PMID:24991806

Development of highly sensitive and specific mRNA multiplex system (XCYR1) for forensic human body fluids and tissues identification.

PubMed

Xu, Yan; Xie, Jianhui; Cao, Yu; Zhou, Huaigu; Ping, Yuan; Chen, Liankang; Gu, Lihua; Hu, Wei; Bi, Gang; Ge, Jianye; Chen, Xin; Zhao, Ziqin

2014-01-01

The identification of human body fluids or tissues through mRNA-based profiling is very useful for forensic investigations. Previous studies have shown mRNA biomarkers are effective to identify the origin of biological samples. In this study, we selected 16 tissue specific biomarkers to evaluate their specificities and sensitivities for human body fluids and tissues identification, including porphobilinogen deaminase (PBGD), hemoglobin beta (HBB) and Glycophorin A (GLY) for circulatory blood, protamine 2 (PRM2) and transglutaminase 4 (TGM4) for semen, mucin 4 (MUC4) and human beta defensin 1(HBD1) for vaginal secretion, matrix metalloproteinases 7 and 11 (MMP7 and MMP11) for menstrual blood, keratin 4(KRT4) for oral mucosa, loricrin (LOR) and cystatin 6 (CST6) for skin, histatin 3(HTN3) for saliva, statherin (STATH) for nasal secretion, dermcidin (DCD) for sweat and uromodulin (UMOD) for urine. The above mentioned ten common forensic body fluids or tissues were used in the evaluation. Based on the evaluation, a reverse transcription (RT) PCR multiplex assay, XCYR1, which includes 12 biomarkers (i.e., HBB, GLY, HTN3, PRM2, KRT4, MMP11, MUC4, DCD, UMOD, MMP7, TGM4, and STATH) and 2 housekeeping genes [i.e., glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and 18SrRNA], was developed. This assay was further validated with real casework samples and mock samples (with both single source and mixture) and it was approved that XCYR1 is effective to identify common body fluids or tissues (i.e., circulatory blood, saliva, semen, vaginal secretion, menstrual blood, oral mucosa, nasal secretion, sweat and urine) in forensic casework samples.

Revisiting global body politics in Nepal: A reflexive analysis.

PubMed

Harcourt, Wendy

2016-01-01

Using the example of a human rights training in Nepal, the author looks at global body politics in a reflexive piece on her engagement in development practices that translate western feminist ideas on gender inequality and empowerment via UN human rights policies into non-western contexts. It firsts look at postcolonial and critical literature on feminist engagement in gender and development processes including a discussion on the concept of global body politics before examining briefly the framing of gender-based violence in Nepal. The core of the paper is a reflexive analysis and interrogation of the training in Nepal in order to bring out the tensions and contradictions around western developmental, feminist and human rights discourses. The discussion looks at how difficult it is for feminist, human rights and developmental discourses and practices to unmoor themselves from the notion of the 'expert' and those who do the rights/work/righting rights training and those who are perennially seen as requiring training. The conclusion reflects on possibilities of other epistemic practices found in intercultural dialogues.

77 FR 35978 - Johnson & Johnson and Synthes, Inc.; Analysis of Agreement Containing Consent Orders to Aid...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-06-15

... the most common fractures in the human body. Distal radius fractures generally occur as a result of an... comprehensive and broad-based manufacturer of products related to all aspects of human health care. In 2011, J&J...

Analyses of the Microbial Diversity across the Human Microbiome

PubMed Central

Li, Kelvin; Bihan, Monika; Yooseph, Shibu; Methé, Barbara A.

2012-01-01

Analysis of human body microbial diversity is fundamental to understanding community structure, biology and ecology. The National Institutes of Health Human Microbiome Project (HMP) has provided an unprecedented opportunity to examine microbial diversity within and across body habitats and individuals through pyrosequencing-based profiling of 16 S rRNA gene sequences (16 S) from habits of the oral, skin, distal gut, and vaginal body regions from over 200 healthy individuals enabling the application of statistical techniques. In this study, two approaches were applied to elucidate the nature and extent of human microbiome diversity. First, bootstrap and parametric curve fitting techniques were evaluated to estimate the maximum number of unique taxa, Smax, and taxa discovery rate for habitats across individuals. Next, our results demonstrated that the variation of diversity within low abundant taxa across habitats and individuals was not sufficiently quantified with standard ecological diversity indices. This impact from low abundant taxa motivated us to introduce a novel rank-based diversity measure, the Tail statistic, (“τ”), based on the standard deviation of the rank abundance curve if made symmetric by reflection around the most abundant taxon. Due to τ’s greater sensitivity to low abundant taxa, its application to diversity estimation of taxonomic units using taxonomic dependent and independent methods revealed a greater range of values recovered between individuals versus body habitats, and different patterns of diversity within habitats. The greatest range of τ values within and across individuals was found in stool, which also exhibited the most undiscovered taxa. Oral and skin habitats revealed variable diversity patterns, while vaginal habitats were consistently the least diverse. Collectively, these results demonstrate the importance, and motivate the introduction, of several visualization and analysis methods tuned specifically for next-generation sequence data, further revealing that low abundant taxa serve as an important reservoir of genetic diversity in the human microbiome. PMID:22719823

Verge of Collapse: The Pros/thesis of Art Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Garoian, Charles R.

2008-01-01

This article explores "prosthesis" as a metaphor of embodiment in art-based research to challenge the utopian myth of wholeness and normality in art and the human body. Bearing in mind the correspondences between amputated bodies and the cultural dislocations of art, I propose "prosthetic epistemology" and "prosthetic ontology" as embodied knowing…

Human body surface area database and estimation formula.

PubMed

Yu, Chi-Yuang; Lin, Ching-Hua; Yang, Yi-Hsueh

2010-08-01

This study established human body surface area (BSA) database and estimation formula based on three-dimensional (3D) scanned data. For each gender, 135 subjects were drawn. The sampling was stratified in five stature heights and three body weights according to a previous survey. The 3D body surface shape was measured using an innovated 3D body scanner and a high resolution hand/foot scanner, the total body surface area (BSA) and segmental body surface area (SBSA) were computed based on the summation of every tiny triangular area of triangular meshes of the scanned surface; and the accuracy of BSA measurement is below 1%. The results of BSA and sixteen SBSAs were tabulated in fifteen strata for the Male, the Female and the Total (two genders combined). The %SBSA data was also used to revise new Lund and Browder Charts. The comparison of BSA shows that the BSA of this study is comparable with the Du Bois and Du Bois' but smaller than that of Tikuisis et al. The difference might be attributed to body size difference between the samples. The comparison of SBSA shows that the differences of SBSA between this study and the Lund and Browder Chart range between 0.00% and 2.30%. A new BSA estimation formula, BSA=71.3989 x H(.7437) x W(.4040), was obtained. An accuracy test showed that this formula has smaller estimation error than that of the Du Bois and Du Bois'; and significantly better than other BSA estimation formulae.

Real-time stylistic prediction for whole-body human motions.

PubMed

Matsubara, Takamitsu; Hyon, Sang-Ho; Morimoto, Jun

2012-01-01

The ability to predict human motion is crucial in several contexts such as human tracking by computer vision and the synthesis of human-like computer graphics. Previous work has focused on off-line processes with well-segmented data; however, many applications such as robotics require real-time control with efficient computation. In this paper, we propose a novel approach called real-time stylistic prediction for whole-body human motions to satisfy these requirements. This approach uses a novel generative model to represent a whole-body human motion including rhythmic motion (e.g., walking) and discrete motion (e.g., jumping). The generative model is composed of a low-dimensional state (phase) dynamics and a two-factor observation model, allowing it to capture the diversity of motion styles in humans. A real-time adaptation algorithm was derived to estimate both state variables and style parameter of the model from non-stationary unlabeled sequential observations. Moreover, with a simple modification, the algorithm allows real-time adaptation even from incomplete (partial) observations. Based on the estimated state and style, a future motion sequence can be accurately predicted. In our implementation, it takes less than 15 ms for both adaptation and prediction at each observation. Our real-time stylistic prediction was evaluated for human walking, running, and jumping behaviors. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Analysis and evaluation of the biofidelity of the human body finite element model in lateral impact simulations according to ISO-TR9790 procedures.

PubMed

Ruan, Jesse S; El-Jawahri, Raed; Rouhana, Stephen W; Barbat, Saeed; Prasad, Priya

2006-11-01

The biofidelity of the Ford Motor Company human body finite element (FE) model in side impact simulations was analyzed and evaluated following the procedures outlined in ISO technical report TR9790. This FE model, representing a 50th percentile adult male, was used to simulate the biomechanical impact tests described in ISO-TR9790. These laboratory tests were considered as suitable for assessing the lateral impact biofidelity of the head, neck, shoulder, thorax, abdomen, and pelvis of crash test dummies, subcomponent test devices, and math models that are used to represent a 50th percentile adult male. The simulated impact responses of the head, neck, shoulder, thorax, abdomen, and pelvis of the FE model were compared with the PMHS (Post Mortem Human Subject) data upon which the response requirements for side impact surrogates was based. An overall biofidelity rating of the human body FE model was determined using the ISO-TR9790 rating method. The resulting rating for the human body FE model was 8.5 on a 0 to 10 scale with 8.6-10 being excellent biofidelity. In addition, in order to explore whether there is a dependency of the impact responses of the FE model on different analysis codes, three commercially available analysis codes, namely, LS-DYNA, Pamcrash, and Radioss were used to run the human body FE model. Effects of these codes on biofidelity when compared with ISO-TR9790 data are discussed. Model robustness and numerical issues arising with three different code simulations are also discussed.

The Complex Action Recognition via the Correlated Topic Model

PubMed Central

Tu, Hong-bin; Xia, Li-min; Wang, Zheng-wu

2014-01-01

Human complex action recognition is an important research area of the action recognition. Among various obstacles to human complex action recognition, one of the most challenging is to deal with self-occlusion, where one body part occludes another one. This paper presents a new method of human complex action recognition, which is based on optical flow and correlated topic model (CTM). Firstly, the Markov random field was used to represent the occlusion relationship between human body parts in terms of an occlusion state variable. Secondly, the structure from motion (SFM) is used for reconstructing the missing data of point trajectories. Then, we can extract the key frame based on motion feature from optical flow and the ratios of the width and height are extracted by the human silhouette. Finally, we use the topic model of correlated topic model (CTM) to classify action. Experiments were performed on the KTH, Weizmann, and UIUC action dataset to test and evaluate the proposed method. The compared experiment results showed that the proposed method was more effective than compared methods. PMID:24574920

Hybrid Orientation Based Human Limbs Motion Tracking Method

PubMed Central

Glonek, Grzegorz; Wojciechowski, Adam

2017-01-01

One of the key technologies that lays behind the human–machine interaction and human motion diagnosis is the limbs motion tracking. To make the limbs tracking efficient, it must be able to estimate a precise and unambiguous position of each tracked human joint and resulting body part pose. In recent years, body pose estimation became very popular and broadly available for home users because of easy access to cheap tracking devices. Their robustness can be improved by different tracking modes data fusion. The paper defines the novel approach—orientation based data fusion—instead of dominating in literature position based approach, for two classes of tracking devices: depth sensors (i.e., Microsoft Kinect) and inertial measurement units (IMU). The detailed analysis of their working characteristics allowed to elaborate a new method that let fuse more precisely limbs orientation data from both devices and compensates their imprecisions. The paper presents the series of performed experiments that verified the method’s accuracy. This novel approach allowed to outperform the precision of position-based joints tracking, the methods dominating in the literature, of up to 18%. PMID:29232832

Visualization of UV exposure of the human body based on data from a scanning UV-measuring system.

PubMed

Hoeppe, P; Oppenrieder, A; Erianto, C; Koepke, P; Reuder, J; Seefeldner, M; Nowak, D

2004-09-01

In general, measurements of UV radition are related to horizontal surfaces, as in the case of the internationally standardized and applied UV index, for example. In order to obtain more relevant information on UV exposure of humans the new measuring system ASCARATIS (Angle SCAnning RAdiometer for determination of erythemally weighted irradiance on TIlted Surfaces) was developed and built. Three systems of ASCARATIS have been in operation at different locations in Bavaria for 3 years, providing erythemally weighted UV irradiation data for 27 differently inclined surfaces every 2 min. On the basis of these data virtual three-dimensional models of the human body surface consisting of about 20,000 triangles could be created and each of these triangles coloured according to its UV irradiation. This allowed the UV exposure of the human body to be visualized for any kind of body posture and spatial orientation on the basis of real measuring data. The results of the UV measurements on inclined surfaces have shown that measuring UV radiation on horizontal surfaces, as done routinely worldwide, often underestimates the UV exposure of the human skin. Especially at times of the day or year with low solar elevations the UV exposure of parts of the human skin can be many times higher than that of the horizontal surface. Examples of three-dimensional modelling of the human UV irradiation are shown for different times of the day and year, altitudes above sea level, body postures and genders. In these examples the UV "hotspots" can be detected and, among other things, used to inform and educate the public about UV radiation.

Determination of Percent Body Fat Using 3D Whole Body Laser Scanning: A Preliminary Investigation

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-11-01

S.B., Lohman, T.G., Wang, Z., and Going, S.B., 2005: Human body composition: Human Kinetics : Champaign, IL. Heyward, V.H. and Wagner, D.R...2004: Applied body composition assessment: Human Kinetics : Champaign, IL. Hodgdon, J.A., and Beckett, M.B., 1984a: Prediction of percent body fat...ethnicity. In: Human body Composition., Heymsfield, S.B., Lohman, T.G., Wang, Z., and Going, S.B (eds.). Human Kinetics : Champaign, IL. Marriott

Cognition in action: imaging brain/body dynamics in mobile humans.

PubMed

Gramann, Klaus; Gwin, Joseph T; Ferris, Daniel P; Oie, Kelvin; Jung, Tzyy-Ping; Lin, Chin-Teng; Liao, Lun-De; Makeig, Scott

2011-01-01

We have recently developed a mobile brain imaging method (MoBI), that allows for simultaneous recording of brain and body dynamics of humans actively behaving in and interacting with their environment. A mobile imaging approach was needed to study cognitive processes that are inherently based on the use of human physical structure to obtain behavioral goals. This review gives examples of the tight coupling between human physical structure with cognitive processing and the role of supraspinal activity during control of human stance and locomotion. Existing brain imaging methods for actively behaving participants are described and new sensor technology allowing for mobile recordings of different behavioral states in humans is introduced. Finally, we review recent work demonstrating the feasibility of a MoBI system that was developed at the Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego, demonstrating the range of behavior that can be investigated with this method.

A Touch Sensing Technique Using the Effects of Extremely Low Frequency Fields on the Human Body

PubMed Central

Elfekey, Hatem; Bastawrous, Hany Ayad; Okamoto, Shogo

2016-01-01

Touch sensing is a fundamental approach in human-to-machine interfaces, and is currently under widespread use. Many current applications use active touch sensing technologies. Passive touch sensing technologies are, however, more adequate to implement low power or energy harvesting touch sensing interfaces. This paper presents a passive touch sensing technique based on the fact that the human body is affected by the surrounding extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields, such as those of AC power lines. These external ELF fields induce electric potentials on the human body—because human tissues exhibit some conductivity at these frequencies—resulting in what is called AC hum. We therefore propose a passive touch sensing system that detects this hum noise when a human touch occurs, thus distinguishing between touch and non-touch events. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is validated by designing and implementing a flexible touch sensing keyboard. PMID:27918416

Spaceflight and protein metabolism, with special reference to humans

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stein, T. P.; Gaprindashvili, T.

1994-01-01

Human space missions have shown that human spaceflight is associated with a loss of body protein. Specific changes include a loss of lean body mass, decreased muscle mass in the calves, decreased muscle strength, and changes in plasma proteins and amino acids. The major muscle loss is believed to be associated with the antigravity (postural) muscle. The most significant loss of protein appears to occur during the first month of flight. The etiology is believed to be multifactorial with contributions from disuse atrophy, undernutrition, and a stress type of response. This article reviews the results of American and Russian space missions to investigate this problem in humans, monkeys, and rats. The relationship of the flight results with ground-based models including bedrest for humans and hindlimb unweighting for rats is also discussed. The results suggest that humans adapt to spaceflight much better than either monkeys or rats.

Overview of physiological principles to support thermal balance and comfort of astronauts in open space and on planetary surfaces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koscheyev, Victor S.; Coca, Aitor; Leon, Gloria R.

2007-02-01

Although specialists have attempted to improve the space suit to provide better protection in open space or on planetary surfaces, there has been a relative lack of attention to features of human thermoregulatory processes that influence comfort and therefore have an impact on the effectiveness of protective equipment. Our findings showed that different body tissues transfer heat in/out of the body in a different manner. There are also individual differences in thermal transfer through body areas with different proportions of tissues; therefore, data on the thermal profile of each astronaut needs to be used to estimate the optimal body areas for heat/cold transfer in and out of the body in an individually tailored cooling/warming garment. Principles for supporting thermal comfort in space were formulated based on a series of studies to evaluate the human body's response to uniform/nonuniform thermal conditions on the body surface. We conclude that future space suit design and comfort support of astronauts can be easier and more effective if these principles are incorporated.

A statistical frame based TDMA protocol for human body communication.

PubMed

Nie, Zedong; Li, Zhao; Huang, Renwei; Liu, Yuhang; Li, Jingzhen; Wang, Lei

2015-07-09

Human body communication (HBC) using the human body as the transmission medium, which has been regarded as one of the most promising short-range communications in wireless body area networks (WBAN). Compared to the traditional wireless networks, two challenges are existed in HBC based WBAN. (1) Its sensor nodes should be energy saving since it is inconvenient to replace or recharge the battery on these sensor nodes; (2) the coordinator should be able to react dynamically and rapidly to the burst traffic triggered by sensing events. Those burst traffic conditions include vital physical signal (electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram etc.) monitoring, human motion detection (fall detection, activity monitoring, gesture recognition, motion sensing etc.) and so on. To cope with aforementioned challenges, a statistical frame based TDMA (S-TDMA) protocol with multi-constrained (energy, delay, transmission efficiency and emergency management) service is proposed in this paper. The scenarios where burst traffic is often triggered rapidly with low power consumption and low delay is handled in our proposed S-TDMA. A beacon frame with the contained synchronous and poll information is designed to reduce the possibility of collisions of request frames. A statistical frame which broadcasts the unified scheduling information is adopted to avoid packet collisions, idle listening and overhearing. Dynamic time slot allocation mechanism is presented to manage the burst traffic and reduce the active period in each beacon period. An emergency mechanism is proposed for vital signals to be transmitted. The theory analysis is proceed and the result is evaluated in the hardware platform. To verify its feasibility, S-TDMA was fully implemented on our independently-developed HBC platform where four sensor nodes and a coordinator are fastened on a human body. Experiment results show that S-TDMA costs 89.397 mJ every 20 s when the payload size is 122 bytes, 9.51% lower than Lightweight MAC (LMAC); the average data latency of S-TDMA is 6.3 ms, 7.02% lower than Preamble-based TDMA (PB-TDMA); the transmission efficiency of S-TDMA is 93.67%, 4.83% higher than IEEE 802.15.6 carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) protocol. With respect to the challenges of HBC based WBANs, a novel S-TDMA protocol was proposed in this paper. Compared to the traditional protocols, the results demonstrate that S-TDMA successfully meets the delay and transmission efficiency requirements of HBC while keeping a low energy consumption. We also believe that our S-TDMA protocol will promote development of HBC in wearable applications.

Body metaphors--reading the body in contemporary culture.

PubMed

Skara, Danica

2004-01-01

This paper addresses the linguistic reframing of the human body in contemporary culture. Our aim is to provide a linguistic description of the ways in which the body is represented in modern English language. First, we will try to focus on body metaphors in general. We have collected a sample of 300 words and phrases functioning as body metaphors in modern English language. Reading the symbolism of the body we are witnessing changes in the basic metaphorical structuring of the human body. The results show that new vocabulary binds different fields of knowledge associated with machines and human beings according to a shared textual frame: human as computer and computer as human metaphor. Humans are almost blended with computers and vice versa. This metaphorical use of the human body and its parts reveals not only currents of unconscious though but also the structures of modern society and culture.

Human body segmentation via data-driven graph cut.

PubMed

Li, Shifeng; Lu, Huchuan; Shao, Xingqing

2014-11-01

Human body segmentation is a challenging and important problem in computer vision. Existing methods usually entail a time-consuming training phase for prior knowledge learning with complex shape matching for body segmentation. In this paper, we propose a data-driven method that integrates top-down body pose information and bottom-up low-level visual cues for segmenting humans in static images within the graph cut framework. The key idea of our approach is first to exploit human kinematics to search for body part candidates via dynamic programming for high-level evidence. Then, by using the body parts classifiers, obtaining bottom-up cues of human body distribution for low-level evidence. All the evidence collected from top-down and bottom-up procedures are integrated in a graph cut framework for human body segmentation. Qualitative and quantitative experiment results demonstrate the merits of the proposed method in segmenting human bodies with arbitrary poses from cluttered backgrounds.

A Computer Graphics Human Figure Application Of Biostereometrics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fetter, William A.

1980-07-01

A study of improved computer graphic representation of the human figure is being conducted under a National Science Foundation grant. Special emphasis is given biostereometrics as a primary data base from which applications requiring a variety of levels of detail may be prepared. For example, a human figure represented by a single point can be very useful in overview plots of a population. A crude ten point figure can be adequate for queuing theory studies and simulated movement of groups. A one hundred point figure can usefully be animated to achieve different overall body activities including male and female figures. A one thousand point figure si-milarly animated, begins to be useful in anthropometrics and kinesiology gross body movements. Extrapolations of this order-of-magnitude approach ultimately should achieve very complex data bases and a program which automatically selects the correct level of detail for the task at hand. See Summary Figure 1.

A protocol describing the use of a recombinant protein-based, animal product-free medium (APEL) for human embryonic stem cell differentiation as spin embryoid bodies.

PubMed

Ng, Elizabeth S; Davis, Richard; Stanley, Edouard G; Elefanty, Andrew G

2008-01-01

In order to promote the uniform and reproducible differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (HESCs) in response to exogenously added growth factors, we have developed a method (spin embryoid bodies (EBs)) that uses a recombinant protein-based, animal product-free medium in which HESCs are aggregated by centrifugation to form EBs. In this protocol we describe the formulation of this medium, denoted APEL (Albumin Polyvinylalcohol Essential Lipids), and its use in spin EB differentiation of HESCs. We also describe a more economical variant, BPEL (Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) Polyvinylalchohol Essential Lipids), in which BSA replaces the recombinant human albumin. The integration of a medium that includes only defined and recombinant components with a defined number of cells to initiate EB formation results in a generally applicable, robust platform for growth factor-directed HESC differentiation.

Simplified model of mean double step (MDS) in human body movement

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dusza, Jacek J.; Wawrzyniak, Zbigniew M.; Mugarra González, C. Fernando

In this paper we present a simplified and useful model of the human body movement based on the full gait cycle description, called the Mean Double Step (MDS). It enables the parameterization and simplification of the human movement. Furthermore it allows a description of the gait cycle by providing standardized estimators to transform the gait cycle into a periodical movement process. Moreover the method of simplifying the MDS model and its compression are demonstrated. The simplification is achieved by reducing the number of bars of the spectrum and I or by reducing the number of samples describing the MDS both in terms of reducing their computational burden and their resources for the data storage. Our MDS model, which is applicable to the gait cycle method for examining patients, is non-invasive and provides the additional advantage of featuring a functional characterization of the relative or absolute movement of any part of the body.

Non-invasive body temperature measurement of wild chimpanzees using fecal temperature decline.

PubMed

Jensen, Siv Aina; Mundry, Roger; Nunn, Charles L; Boesch, Christophe; Leendertz, Fabian H

2009-04-01

New methods are required to increase our understanding of pathologic processes in wild mammals. We developed a noninvasive field method to estimate the body temperature of wild living chimpanzees habituated to humans, based on statistically fitting temperature decline of feces after defecation. The method was established with the use of control measures of human rectal temperature and subsequent changes in fecal temperature over time. The method was then applied to temperature data collected from wild chimpanzee feces. In humans, we found good correspondence between the temperature estimated by the method and the actual rectal temperature that was measured (maximum deviation 0.22 C). The method was successfully applied and the average estimated temperature of the chimpanzees was 37.2 C. This simple-to-use field method reliably estimates the body temperature of wild chimpanzees and probably also other large mammals.

Understanding the Impact of User Frustration Intensities on Task Performance Using the OCC Theory of Emotions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Washington, Gloria

2012-01-01

Have you heard the saying "frustration is written all over your falce"? Well this saying is true, but that is not the only place. Frustration is written all over your face and your body. The human body has various means to communicate an emotion without the utterance of a single word. The Media Equation says that people interact with computers as if they are human: this includes experiencing frustration. This research measures frustration by monitoring human body-based measures such as heart rate, posture, skin temperature. and respiration. The OCC Theory of Emotions is used to separate frustration into different levels or intensities. The results of this study showed that individual intensities of frustration exist, so that task performance is not degraded. Results from this study can be used by usability testers to model how much frustration is needed before task performance measures start to decrease.

Infants' Responses to Real Humans and Representations of Humans

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heron, Michelle; Slaughter, Virginia

2010-01-01

Infants' responses to typical and scrambled human body shapes were assessed in relation to the realism of the human body stimuli presented. In four separate experiments, infants were familiarized to typical human bodies and then shown a series of scrambled human bodies on the test. Looking behaviour was assessed in response to a range of different…

Searching for Survivors through Random Human-Body Movement Outdoors by Continuous-Wave Radar Array

PubMed Central

Liu, Miao; Li, Zhao; Liang, Fulai; Jing, Xijing; Lu, Guohua; Wang, Jianqi

2016-01-01

It is a major challenge to search for survivors after chemical or nuclear leakage or explosions. At present, biological radar can be used to achieve this goal by detecting the survivor’s respiration signal. However, owing to the random posture of an injured person at a rescue site, the radar wave may directly irradiate the person’s head or feet, in which it is difficult to detect the respiration signal. This paper describes a multichannel-based antenna array technology, which forms an omnidirectional detection system via 24-GHz Doppler biological radar, to address the random positioning relative to the antenna of an object to be detected. Furthermore, since the survivors often have random body movement such as struggling and twitching, the slight movements of the body caused by breathing are obscured by these movements. Therefore, a method is proposed to identify random human-body movement by utilizing multichannel information to calculate the background variance of the environment in combination with a constant-false-alarm-rate detector. The conducted outdoor experiments indicate that the system can realize the omnidirectional detection of random human-body movement and distinguish body movement from environmental interference such as movement of leaves and grass. The methods proposed in this paper will be a promising way to search for survivors outdoors. PMID:27073860

Searching for Survivors through Random Human-Body Movement Outdoors by Continuous-Wave Radar Array.

PubMed

Li, Chuantao; Chen, Fuming; Qi, Fugui; Liu, Miao; Li, Zhao; Liang, Fulai; Jing, Xijing; Lu, Guohua; Wang, Jianqi

2016-01-01

It is a major challenge to search for survivors after chemical or nuclear leakage or explosions. At present, biological radar can be used to achieve this goal by detecting the survivor's respiration signal. However, owing to the random posture of an injured person at a rescue site, the radar wave may directly irradiate the person's head or feet, in which it is difficult to detect the respiration signal. This paper describes a multichannel-based antenna array technology, which forms an omnidirectional detection system via 24-GHz Doppler biological radar, to address the random positioning relative to the antenna of an object to be detected. Furthermore, since the survivors often have random body movement such as struggling and twitching, the slight movements of the body caused by breathing are obscured by these movements. Therefore, a method is proposed to identify random human-body movement by utilizing multichannel information to calculate the background variance of the environment in combination with a constant-false-alarm-rate detector. The conducted outdoor experiments indicate that the system can realize the omnidirectional detection of random human-body movement and distinguish body movement from environmental interference such as movement of leaves and grass. The methods proposed in this paper will be a promising way to search for survivors outdoors.

A research on the postural stability of a person wearing the lower limb exoskeletal robot by the HAT model.

PubMed

Chang, Minsu; Kim, Yeongmin; Lee, Yoseph; Jeon, Doyoung

2017-07-01

This paper proposes a method of detecting the postural stability of a person wearing the lower limb exoskeletal robot with the HAT(Head-Arm-Trunk) model. Previous studies have shown that the human posture is stable when the CoM(Center of Mass) of the human body is placed on the BoS(Base of Support). In the case of the lower limb exoskeletal robot, the motion data, which are used for the CoM estimation, are acquired by sensors in the robot. The upper body, however, does not have sensors in each segment so that it may cause the error of the CoM estimation. In this paper, the HAT(Head-Arm-Trunk) model which combines head, arms, and torso into a single segment is considered because the motion of head and arms are unknown due to the lack of sensors. To verify the feasibility of HAT model, the reflecting markers are attached to each segment of the whole human body and the exact motion data are acquired by the VICON to compare the COM of the full body model and HAT model. The difference between the CoM with full body and that with HAT model is within 20mm for the various motions of head and arms. Based on the HAT model, the XCoM(Extrapolated Center of Mass) which includes the velocity of the CoM is used for prediction of the postural stability. The experiment of making unstable posture shows that the XCoM of the whole body based on the HAT model is feasible to detect the instance of postural instability earlier than the CoM by 20-250 msec. This result may be used for the lower limb exoskeletal robot to prepare for any action to prevent the falling down.

The biodigital human: a web-based 3D platform for medical visualization and education.

PubMed

Qualter, John; Sculli, Frank; Oliker, Aaron; Napier, Zachary; Lee, Sabrina; Garcia, Julio; Frenkel, Sally; Harnik, Victoria; Triola, Marc

2012-01-01

NYU School of Medicine's Division of Educational Informatics in collaboration with BioDigital Systems LLC (New York, NY) has created a virtual human body dataset that is being used for visualization, education and training and is accessible over modern web browsers.

Human body contour data based activity recognition.

PubMed

Myagmarbayar, Nergui; Yuki, Yoshida; Imamoglu, Nevrez; Gonzalez, Jose; Otake, Mihoko; Yu, Wenwei

2013-01-01

This research work is aimed to develop autonomous bio-monitoring mobile robots, which are capable of tracking and measuring patients' motions, recognizing the patients' behavior based on observation data, and providing calling for medical personnel in emergency situations in home environment. The robots to be developed will bring about cost-effective, safe and easier at-home rehabilitation to most motor-function impaired patients (MIPs). In our previous research, a full framework was established towards this research goal. In this research, we aimed at improving the human activity recognition by using contour data of the tracked human subject extracted from the depth images as the signal source, instead of the lower limb joint angle data used in the previous research, which are more likely to be affected by the motion of the robot and human subjects. Several geometric parameters, such as, the ratio of height to weight of the tracked human subject, and distance (pixels) between centroid points of upper and lower parts of human body, were calculated from the contour data, and used as the features for the activity recognition. A Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is employed to classify different human activities from the features. Experimental results showed that the human activity recognition could be achieved with a high correct rate.

Body Temperature-Related Structural Transitions of Monotremal and Human Hemoglobin

PubMed Central

Digel, I.; Maggakis-Kelemen, Ch.; Zerlin, K. F.; Linder, Pt.; Kasischke, N.; Kayser, P.; Porst, D.; Temiz Artmann, A.; Artmann, G. M.

2006-01-01

In this study, temperature-related structural changes were investigated in human, duck-billed platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus, body temperature Tb = 31–33°C), and echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus, body temperature Tb = 32–33°C) hemoglobin using circular dichroism spectroscopy and dynamic light scattering. The average hydrodynamic radius (Rh) and fractional (normalized) change in the ellipticity (Fobs) at 222 ± 2 nm of hemoglobin were measured. The temperature was varied stepwise from 25°C to 45°C. The existence of a structural transition of human hemoglobin at the critical temperature Tc between 36–37°C was previously shown by micropipette aspiration experiments, viscosimetry, and circular dichroism spectroscopy. Based on light-scattering measurements, this study proves the onset of molecular aggregation at Tc. In two different monotremal hemoglobins (echidna and platypus), the critical transition temperatures were found between 32–33°C, which are close to the species' body temperature Tb. The data suggest that the correlation of the structural transition's critical temperature Tc and the species' body temperature Tb is not mere coincidence but, instead, is a more widespread structural phenomenon possibly including many other proteins. PMID:16844747

Body temperature-related structural transitions of monotremal and human hemoglobin.

PubMed

Digel, I; Maggakis-Kelemen, Ch; Zerlin, K F; Linder, Pt; Kasischke, N; Kayser, P; Porst, D; Temiz Artmann, A; Artmann, G M

2006-10-15

In this study, temperature-related structural changes were investigated in human, duck-billed platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus, body temperature T(b) = 31-33 degrees C), and echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus, body temperature T(b) = 32-33 degrees C) hemoglobin using circular dichroism spectroscopy and dynamic light scattering. The average hydrodynamic radius (R(h)) and fractional (normalized) change in the ellipticity (F(obs)) at 222 +/- 2 nm of hemoglobin were measured. The temperature was varied stepwise from 25 degrees C to 45 degrees C. The existence of a structural transition of human hemoglobin at the critical temperature T(c) between 36-37 degrees C was previously shown by micropipette aspiration experiments, viscosimetry, and circular dichroism spectroscopy. Based on light-scattering measurements, this study proves the onset of molecular aggregation at T(c). In two different monotremal hemoglobins (echidna and platypus), the critical transition temperatures were found between 32-33 degrees C, which are close to the species' body temperature T(b). The data suggest that the correlation of the structural transition's critical temperature T(c) and the species' body temperature T(b) is not mere coincidence but, instead, is a more widespread structural phenomenon possibly including many other proteins.

The journey of discovering skull base anatomy in ancient Egypt and the special influence of Alexandria.

PubMed

Elhadi, Ali M; Kalb, Samuel; Perez-Orribo, Luis; Little, Andrew S; Spetzler, Robert F; Preul, Mark C

2012-08-01

The field of anatomy, one of the most ancient sciences, first evolved in Egypt. From the Early Dynastic Period (3100 BC) until the time of Galen at the end of the 2nd century ad, Egypt was the center of anatomical knowledge, including neuroanatomy. Knowledge of neuroanatomy first became important so that sacred rituals could be performed by ancient Egyptian embalmers during mummification procedures. Later, neuroanatomy became a science to be studied by wise men at the ancient temple of Memphis. As religious conflicts developed, the study of the human body became restricted. Myths started to replace scientific research, squelching further exploration of the human body until Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria. This period witnessed a revolution in the study of anatomy and functional anatomy. Herophilus of Chalcedon, Erasistratus of Chios, Rufus of Ephesus, and Galen of Pergamon were prominent physicians who studied at the medical school of Alexandria and contributed greatly to knowledge about the anatomy of the skull base. After the Royal Library of Alexandria was burned and laws were passed prohibiting human dissections based on religious and cultural factors, knowledge of human skull base anatomy plateaued for almost 1500 years. In this article the authors consider the beginning of this journey, from the earliest descriptions of skull base anatomy to the establishment of basic skull base anatomy in ancient Egypt.

Feature selection for wearable smartphone-based human activity recognition with able bodied, elderly, and stroke patients.

PubMed

Capela, Nicole A; Lemaire, Edward D; Baddour, Natalie

2015-01-01

Human activity recognition (HAR), using wearable sensors, is a growing area with the potential to provide valuable information on patient mobility to rehabilitation specialists. Smartphones with accelerometer and gyroscope sensors are a convenient, minimally invasive, and low cost approach for mobility monitoring. HAR systems typically pre-process raw signals, segment the signals, and then extract features to be used in a classifier. Feature selection is a crucial step in the process to reduce potentially large data dimensionality and provide viable parameters to enable activity classification. Most HAR systems are customized to an individual research group, including a unique data set, classes, algorithms, and signal features. These data sets are obtained predominantly from able-bodied participants. In this paper, smartphone accelerometer and gyroscope sensor data were collected from populations that can benefit from human activity recognition: able-bodied, elderly, and stroke patients. Data from a consecutive sequence of 41 mobility tasks (18 different tasks) were collected for a total of 44 participants. Seventy-six signal features were calculated and subsets of these features were selected using three filter-based, classifier-independent, feature selection methods (Relief-F, Correlation-based Feature Selection, Fast Correlation Based Filter). The feature subsets were then evaluated using three generic classifiers (Naïve Bayes, Support Vector Machine, j48 Decision Tree). Common features were identified for all three populations, although the stroke population subset had some differences from both able-bodied and elderly sets. Evaluation with the three classifiers showed that the feature subsets produced similar or better accuracies than classification with the entire feature set. Therefore, since these feature subsets are classifier-independent, they should be useful for developing and improving HAR systems across and within populations.

Feature Selection for Wearable Smartphone-Based Human Activity Recognition with Able bodied, Elderly, and Stroke Patients

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

Human activity recognition (HAR), using wearable sensors, is a growing area with the potential to provide valuable information on patient mobility to rehabilitation specialists. Smartphones with accelerometer and gyroscope sensors are a convenient, minimally invasive, and low cost approach for mobility monitoring. HAR systems typically pre-process raw signals, segment the signals, and then extract features to be used in a classifier. Feature selection is a crucial step in the process to reduce potentially large data dimensionality and provide viable parameters to enable activity classification. Most HAR systems are customized to an individual research group, including a unique data set, classes, algorithms, and signal features. These data sets are obtained predominantly from able-bodied participants. In this paper, smartphone accelerometer and gyroscope sensor data were collected from populations that can benefit from human activity recognition: able-bodied, elderly, and stroke patients. Data from a consecutive sequence of 41 mobility tasks (18 different tasks) were collected for a total of 44 participants. Seventy-six signal features were calculated and subsets of these features were selected using three filter-based, classifier-independent, feature selection methods (Relief-F, Correlation-based Feature Selection, Fast Correlation Based Filter). The feature subsets were then evaluated using three generic classifiers (Naïve Bayes, Support Vector Machine, j48 Decision Tree). Common features were identified for all three populations, although the stroke population subset had some differences from both able-bodied and elderly sets. Evaluation with the three classifiers showed that the feature subsets produced similar or better accuracies than classification with the entire feature set. Therefore, since these feature subsets are classifier-independent, they should be useful for developing and improving HAR systems across and within populations. PMID:25885272

FDTD analysis of body-core temperature elevation in children and adults for whole-body exposure.

PubMed

Hirata, Akimasa; Asano, Takayuki; Fujiwara, Osamu

2008-09-21

The temperature elevations in anatomically based human phantoms of an adult and a 3-year-old child were calculated for radio-frequency whole-body exposure. Thermoregulation in children, however, has not yet been clarified. In the present study, we developed a computational thermal model of a child that is reasonable for simulating body-core temperature elevation. Comparison of measured and simulated temperatures revealed thermoregulation in children to be similar to that of adults. Based on this finding, we calculated the body-core temperature elevation in a 3-year-old child and an adult for plane-wave exposure at the basic restriction in the international guidelines. The body-core temperature elevation in the 3-year-old child phantom was 0.03 degrees C at a whole-body-averaged specific absorption rate of 0.08 W kg(-1), which was 35% smaller than in the adult female. This difference is attributed to the child's higher body surface area-to-mass ratio.

Bone Research and Animal Support of Human Space Exploration: Where do we go from here?

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Morey-Holton, Emily R.

2004-01-01

NASA exploration goals include returning humans to the moon by 20 15-2020 as a prelude for human exploration of Mars and beyond. The number of human flight subjects available during this very short time period is insufficient to solve high-risk problems without data from animals. This presentation will focus on three questions: What do we know? What do we need to know? Where do we go from here?: roles for animals in the exploration era. Answers to these questions are based on flight and ground-based models using humans and animals. First, what do we know? Adult humans have spent less than 1% of their lifespan in space while juvenile rats have spent almost 2%. This information suggests that our data are rather meager for projecting to a 30-month mission to Mars. The space platforms for humans have included Skylab, STS/MIR, and STS/ISS and for animals have included the unmanned Bion series and shuttle. The ground-based models include head-down bedrest in humans (BR) and hindlimb unloading in rodents (HU). We know that as gravity decreases, the impact forces generated by the body during locomotion decrease. For example, on Earth, your legs supports approximately 1 body weight (BW) when standing, 1.33BW when walking, and 3BW when jogging. On Mars, the same activity would generate 0.38BW standing, 0.5BW walking, and 1BW when jogging. In space, no impact load is generated, as gravity is minimal.

Dose in critical body organs in low Earth orbit

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wilson, J. W.; Cucinotta, F.

1984-01-01

Human exposure to trapped radiations in low Earth orbit (LEO) are evaluated on the basis of a simple approximation of the human geometry for spherical shell shields of varying thickness. A data base is presented that may be used to make preliminary assessment of the impact of radiation exposure constraints on human performance. A sample impact assessment is discussed.

Trained humans can exercise safely in extreme dry heat when drinking water ad libitum.

PubMed

Nolte, Heinrich W; Noakes, Timothy D; Van Vuuren, Bernard

2011-09-01

Guidelines to establish safe environmental exercise conditions are partly based on thermal prescriptive zones. Yet there are reports of self-paced human athletic performances in extreme heat. Eighteen participants undertook a 25-km route march in a dry bulb temperature reaching 44.3°C. The mean (± s) age of the participants was 26.0 ± 3.7 years. Their mean ad libitum water intake was 1264 ± 229 mL · h(-1). Predicted sweat rate was 1789 ± 267 mL · h(-1). Despite an average body mass loss of 2.73 ± 0.98 kg, plasma osmolality and serum sodium concentration did not change significantly during exercise. Total body water fell 1.47 kg during exercise. However, change in body mass did not accurately predict changes in total body water as a 1:1 ratio. There was a significant relationship (negative slope) between post-exercise serum sodium concentration and changes in both body mass and percent total body water. There was no relationship between percent body mass loss and peak exercise core temperature (39 ± 0.9°C) or exercise time. We conclude that participants maintained plasma osmolality, serum sodium concentration, and safe core temperatures by (1) adopting a pacing strategy, (2) high rates of ad libitum water intake, and (3) by a small reduction in total body water to maintain serum sodium concentration. Our findings support the hypothesis that humans are the mammals with the greatest capacity for exercising in extreme heat.

Human Classification Based on Gestural Motions by Using Components of PCA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aziz, Azri A.; Wan, Khairunizam; Za'aba, S. K.; B, Shahriman A.; Adnan, Nazrul H.; H, Asyekin; R, Zuradzman M.

2013-12-01

Lately, a study of human capabilities with the aim to be integrated into machine is the famous topic to be discussed. Moreover, human are bless with special abilities that they can hear, see, sense, speak, think and understand each other. Giving such abilities to machine for improvement of human life is researcher's aim for better quality of life in the future. This research was concentrating on human gesture, specifically arm motions for differencing the individuality which lead to the development of the hand gesture database. We try to differentiate the human physical characteristic based on hand gesture represented by arm trajectories. Subjects are selected from different type of the body sizes, and then acquired data undergo resampling process. The results discuss the classification of human based on arm trajectories by using Principle Component Analysis (PCA).

Calculation of the electric field resulting from human body rotation in a magnetic field

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cobos Sánchez, Clemente; Glover, Paul; Power, Henry; Bowtell, Richard

2012-08-01

A number of recent studies have shown that the electric field and current density induced in the human body by movement in and around magnetic resonance imaging installations can exceed regulatory levels. Although it is possible to measure the induced electric fields at the surface of the body, it is usually more convenient to use numerical models to predict likely exposure under well-defined movement conditions. Whilst the accuracy of these models is not in doubt, this paper shows that modelling of particular rotational movements should be treated with care. In particular, we show that v  ×  B rather than -(v  ·  ∇)A should be used as the driving term in potential-based modelling of induced fields. Although for translational motion the two driving terms are equivalent, specific examples of rotational rigid-body motion are given where incorrect results are obtained when -(v  ·  ∇)A is employed. In addition, we show that it is important to take into account the space charge which can be generated by rotations and we also consider particular cases where neglecting the space charge generates erroneous results. Along with analytic calculations based on simple models, boundary-element-based numerical calculations are used to illustrate these findings.

Comparison of UTCI to selected thermal indices.

PubMed

Blazejczyk, Krzysztof; Epstein, Yoram; Jendritzky, Gerd; Staiger, Henning; Tinz, Birger

2012-05-01

Over the past century more than 100 indices have been developed and used to assess bioclimatic conditions for human beings. The majority of these indices are used sporadically or for specific purposes. Some are based on generalized results of measurements (wind chill, cooling power, wet bulb temperature) and some on the empirically observed reactions of the human body to thermal stress (physiological strain, effective temperature). Those indices that are based on human heat balance considerations are referred to as "rational indices". Several simple human heat balance models are known and are used in research and practice. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the newly developed Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI), and some of the more prevalent thermal indices. The analysis is based on three groups of data: global data-set, synoptic datasets from Europe, and local scale data from special measurement campaigns of COST Action 730. We found the present indices to express bioclimatic conditions reasonably only under specific meteorological situations, while the UTCI represents specific climates, weather, and locations much better. Furthermore, similar to the human body, the UTCI is very sensitive to changes in ambient stimuli: temperature, solar radiation, wind and humidity. UTCI depicts temporal variability of thermal conditions better than other indices. The UTCI scale is able to express even slight differences in the intensity of meteorological stimuli.

Simulation of Longitudinal Exposure Data with Variance-Covariance Structures Based on Mixed Models

EPA Science Inventory

Longitudinal data are important in exposure and risk assessments, especially for pollutants with long half-lives in the human body and where chronic exposures to current levels in the environment raise concerns for human health effects. It is usually difficult and expensive to ob...

Biology and genetics of human head and body lice.

PubMed

Veracx, Aurélie; Raoult, Didier

2012-12-01

Head lice and body lice have distinct ecologies and differ slightly in morphology and biology, questioning their taxonomic status. Over the past 10 years many genetic studies have been undertaken. Controversial data suggest that not only body lice but also head lice can serve as vectors of Bartonella quintana, and a better understanding of louse epidemiology is crucial. Here, we review taxonomic studies based on biology and genetics, including genomic data on lice, lice endosymbionts, and louse-transmitted bacteria. We recommend that studies of human lice employ morphological and biological characteristics in conjunction with transcriptomic date because lice seem to differ mainly in gene expression (and not in gene content), leading to different phenotypes. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neandertal clavicle length

PubMed Central

Trinkaus, Erik; Holliday, Trenton W.; Auerbach, Benjamin M.

2014-01-01

The Late Pleistocene archaic humans from western Eurasia (the Neandertals) have been described for a century as exhibiting absolutely and relatively long clavicles. This aspect of their body proportions has been used to distinguish them from modern humans, invoked to account for other aspects of their anatomy and genetics, used in assessments of their phylogenetic polarities, and used as evidence for Late Pleistocene population relationships. However, it has been unclear whether the usual scaling of Neandertal clavicular lengths to their associated humeral lengths reflects long clavicles, short humeri, or both. Neandertal clavicle lengths, along with those of early modern humans and latitudinally diverse recent humans, were compared with both humeral lengths and estimated body masses (based on femoral head diameters). The Neandertal do have long clavicles relative their humeri, even though they fall within the ranges of variation of early and recent humans. However, when scaled to body masses, their humeral lengths are relatively short, and their clavicular lengths are indistinguishable from those of Late Pleistocene and recent modern humans. The few sufficiently complete Early Pleistocene Homo clavicles seem to have relative lengths also well within recent human variation. Therefore, appropriately scaled clavicular length seems to have varied little through the genus Homo, and it should not be used to account for other aspects of Neandertal biology or their phylogenetic status. PMID:24616525

Superior Red Blood Cell Generation from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Through a Novel Microcarrier-Based Embryoid Body Platform.

PubMed

Sivalingam, Jaichandran; Lam, Alan Tin-Lun; Chen, Hong Yu; Yang, Bin Xia; Chen, Allen Kuan-Liang; Reuveny, Shaul; Loh, Yuin-Han; Oh, Steve Kah-Weng

2016-08-01

In vitro generation of red blood cells (RBCs) from human embryonic stem cells and human induced pluripotent stem cells appears to be a promising alternate approach to circumvent shortages in donor-derived blood supplies for clinical applications. Conventional methods for hematopoietic differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC) rely on embryoid body (EB) formation and/or coculture with xenogeneic cell lines. However, most current methods for hPSC expansion and EB formation are not amenable for scale-up to levels required for large-scale RBC generation. Moreover, differentiation methods that rely on xenogenic cell lines would face obstacles for future clinical translation. In this study, we report the development of a serum-free and chemically defined microcarrier-based suspension culture platform for scalable hPSC expansion and EB formation. Improved survival and better quality EBs generated with the microcarrier-based method resulted in significantly improved mesoderm induction and, when combined with hematopoietic differentiation, resulted in at least a 6-fold improvement in hematopoietic precursor expansion, potentially culminating in a 80-fold improvement in the yield of RBC generation compared to a conventional EB-based differentiation method. In addition, we report efficient terminal maturation and generation of mature enucleated RBCs using a coculture system that comprised primary human mesenchymal stromal cells. The microcarrier-based platform could prove to be an appealing strategy for future scale-up of hPSC culture, EB generation, and large-scale generation of RBCs under defined and xeno-free conditions.

Gadolinium-based magnetic resonance contrast agents at 7 Tesla: in vitro T1 relaxivities in human blood plasma.

PubMed

Noebauer-Huhmann, Iris M; Szomolanyi, Pavol; Juras, Vladimír; Kraff, Oliver; Ladd, Mark E; Trattnig, Siegfried

2010-09-01

PURPOSE/INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to determine the T1 relaxivities (r1) of 8 gadolinium (Gd)-based MR contrast agents in human blood plasma at 7 Tesla, compared with 3 Tesla. Eight commercially available Gd-based MR contrast agents were diluted in human blood plasma to concentrations of 0, 0.25, 0.5, 1, and 2 mmol/L. In vitro measurements were performed at 37 degrees C, on a 7 Tesla and on a 3 Tesla whole-body magnetic resonance imaging scanner. For the determination of T1 relaxation times, Inversion Recovery Sequences with inversion times from 0 to 3500 ms were used. The relaxivities were calculated. The r1 relaxivities of all agents, diluted in human blood plasma at body temperature, were lower at 7 Tesla than at 3 Tesla. The values at 3 Tesla were comparable to those published earlier. Notably, in some agents, a minor negative correlation of r1 with a concentration of up to 2 mmol/L could be observed. This was most pronounced in the agents with the highest protein-binding capacity. At 7 Tesla, the in vitro r1 relaxivities of Gd-based contrast agents in human blood plasma are lower than those at 3 Tesla. This work may serve as a basis for the application of Gd-based MR contrast agents at 7 Tesla. Further studies are required to optimize the contrast agent dose in vivo.

A journey toward wholeness, a journey to God: physical fitness as embodied spirituality.

PubMed

Greenwood, Tracey C; Delgado, Teresa

2013-09-01

Physical fitness expressed through exercise can be, if done with the right intention, a form of spiritual discipline that reflects the relational love of humanity to God as well as an expression of a healthy love of the embodied self. Through an analysis of the physiological benefits of exercise science applied to the human body, this paper will demonstrate how such attention to the optimal physical fitness of the body, including weight and cardiovascular training and nutrition, is an affirmation of three foundational theological principles of human embodiment: as created in the "imago Dei", as unified body/spirit, and as part of God's creation calling for proper stewardship. In a contemporary climate where women's bodies in particular are viewed through the lens of commodification-as visual objects for sale based on prescribed notions of superficial esthetics and beauty-as well as the consistently high rates of eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and obesity, authors Greenwood and Delgado offer a vision of how women and men can imagine a subjective relationship with their own bodies that reflects the abundant love of God for God's creation. Spoken from the lived experience of professional fitness competitor and trainer, as well as trained biokineticist, Dr. Greenwood presents the most current scientific data in the field of biokinetics that grounds the theological analysis offered by Dr. Delgado, whose personal journey through anorexia and scholarly emphasis on Christian theological anthropology inform this work. Taken together, Greenwood and Delgado suggest a response to God's love for humanity, including our physical bodily humanity, which entails a responsibility to attend to the physical fitness of our bodies in order to live into the fullness, flourishing and love of God's creation as God intended.

Theoretical assessment of the maximum obtainable power in wireless power transfer constrained by human body exposure limits in a typical room scenario.

PubMed

Chen, Xi Lin; De Santis, Valerio; Umenei, Aghuinyue Esai

2014-07-07

In this study, the maximum received power obtainable through wireless power transfer (WPT) by a small receiver (Rx) coil from a relatively large transmitter (Tx) coil is numerically estimated in the frequency range from 100 kHz to 10 MHz based on human body exposure limits. Analytical calculations were first conducted to determine the worst-case coupling between a homogeneous cylindrical phantom with a radius of 0.65 m and a Tx coil positioned 0.1 m away with the radius ranging from 0.25 to 2.5 m. Subsequently, three high-resolution anatomical models were employed to compute the peak induced field intensities with respect to various Tx coil locations and dimensions. Based on the computational results, scaling factors which correlate the cylindrical phantom and anatomical model results were derived. Next, the optimal operating frequency, at which the highest transmitter source power can be utilized without exceeding the exposure limits, is found to be around 2 MHz. Finally, a formulation is proposed to estimate the maximum obtainable power of WPT in a typical room scenario while adhering to the human body exposure compliance mandates.

Theoretical assessment of the maximum obtainable power in wireless power transfer constrained by human body exposure limits in a typical room scenario

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Xi Lin; De Santis, Valerio; Esai Umenei, Aghuinyue

2014-07-01

In this study, the maximum received power obtainable through wireless power transfer (WPT) by a small receiver (Rx) coil from a relatively large transmitter (Tx) coil is numerically estimated in the frequency range from 100 kHz to 10 MHz based on human body exposure limits. Analytical calculations were first conducted to determine the worst-case coupling between a homogeneous cylindrical phantom with a radius of 0.65 m and a Tx coil positioned 0.1 m away with the radius ranging from 0.25 to 2.5 m. Subsequently, three high-resolution anatomical models were employed to compute the peak induced field intensities with respect to various Tx coil locations and dimensions. Based on the computational results, scaling factors which correlate the cylindrical phantom and anatomical model results were derived. Next, the optimal operating frequency, at which the highest transmitter source power can be utilized without exceeding the exposure limits, is found to be around 2 MHz. Finally, a formulation is proposed to estimate the maximum obtainable power of WPT in a typical room scenario while adhering to the human body exposure compliance mandates.

Sensitivity field distributions for segmental bioelectrical impedance analysis based on real human anatomy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Danilov, A. A.; Kramarenko, V. K.; Nikolaev, D. V.; Rudnev, S. G.; Salamatova, V. Yu; Smirnov, A. V.; Vassilevski, Yu V.

2013-04-01

In this work, an adaptive unstructured tetrahedral mesh generation technology is applied for simulation of segmental bioimpedance measurements using high-resolution whole-body model of the Visible Human Project man. Sensitivity field distributions for a conventional tetrapolar, as well as eight- and ten-electrode measurement configurations are obtained. Based on the ten-electrode configuration, we suggest an algorithm for monitoring changes in the upper lung area.

High-energy x-ray grating-based phase-contrast radiography of human anatomy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Horn, Florian; Hauke, Christian; Lachner, Sebastian; Ludwig, Veronika; Pelzer, Georg; Rieger, Jens; Schuster, Max; Seifert, Maria; Wandner, Johannes; Wolf, Andreas; Michel, Thilo; Anton, Gisela

2016-03-01

X-ray grating-based phase-contrast Talbot-Lau interferometry is a promising imaging technology that has the potential to raise soft tissue contrast in comparison to conventional attenuation-based imaging. Additionally, it is sensitive to attenuation, refraction and scattering of the radiation and thus provides complementary and otherwise inaccessible information due to the dark-field image, which shows the sub-pixel size granularity of the measured object. Until recent progress the method has been mainly limited to photon energies below 40 keV. Scaling the method to photon energies that are sufficient to pass large and spacious objects represents a challenging task. This is caused by increasing demands regarding the fabrication process of the gratings and the broad spectra that come along with the use of polychromatic X-ray sources operated at high acceleration voltages. We designed a setup that is capable to reach high visibilities in the range from 50 to 120 kV. Therefore, spacious and dense parts of the human body with high attenuation can be measured, such as a human knee. The authors will show investigations on the resulting attenuation, differential phase-contrast and dark-field images. The images experimentally show that X-ray grating-based phase-contrast radiography is feasible with highly absorbing parts of the human body containing massive bones.

Population Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling for the Human Lactational Transfer of PCB 153 with Consideration of Worldwide Human Biomonitoring Results

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Redding, Laurel E.; Sohn, Michael D.; McKone, Thomas E.

2008-03-01

We developed a physiologically based pharmacokinetic model of PCB 153 in women, and predict its transfer via lactation to infants. The model is the first human, population-scale lactational model for PCB 153. Data in the literature provided estimates for model development and for performance assessment. Physiological parameters were taken from a cohort in Taiwan and from reference values in the literature. We estimated partition coefficients based on chemical structure and the lipid content in various body tissues. Using exposure data in Japan, we predicted acquired body burden of PCB 153 at an average childbearing age of 25 years and comparemore » predictions to measurements from studies in multiple countries. Forward-model predictions agree well with human biomonitoring measurements, as represented by summary statistics and uncertainty estimates. The model successfully describes the range of possible PCB 153 dispositions in maternal milk, suggesting a promising option for back estimating doses for various populations. One example of reverse dosimetry modeling was attempted using our PBPK model for possible exposure scenarios in Canadian Inuits who had the highest level of PCB 153 in their milk in the world.« less

Update on food safety of monosodium l-glutamate (MSG).

PubMed

Henry-Unaeze, Helen Nonye

2017-12-01

This evidence-based safety review of the flavor enhancer monosodium l-glutamate (MSG) was triggered by its global use and recent studies expressing some safety concerns. This article obtained information through search of evidence-based scientific databases, especially the US National Library of Medicine NIH. (A) MSG is a water-soluble salt of glutamate, a non-essential amino acid, normally synthesized in the body and prevalent in protein foods. (B) MSG is utilized world-wide for its "umami" taste and flavor enhancement qualities, (C) the human body does not discriminate between glutamate present in food and that added as seasoning, (D) glutamate metabolism is compartmentalized in the human body without reported ethnic differences, (E) glutamate does not passively cross biological membranes, (F) food glutamate is completely metabolized by gut cells as energy source and serves as key substrate for other important metabolites in the liver, (G) normal food use of MSG is dose-dependent and self-limiting without elevation in plasma glutamate, (H) the recent EFSA acceptable daily intake (30mg/kg body weight/day) is not attainable when MSG is consumed at normal dietary level, (I) scientists have not been able to consistently elicit reactions in double-blind studies with 'sensitive' individuals using MSG or placebo in food. Based on the above observations (A-I), high quality MSG is safe for all life-cycle stages without respect to ethnic origin or culinary background. MSG researchers are advised to employ appropriate scientific methodologies, consider glutamate metabolism and its normal food use before extrapolating pharmacological rodent studies to humans. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

COMPARISON OF ORGAN DOSES IN HUMAN PHANTOMS: VARIATIONS DUE TO BODY SIZE AND POSTURE.

PubMed

Feng, Xu; Xiang-Hong, Jia; Qian, Liu; Xue-Jun, Yu; Zhan-Chun, Pan; Chun-Xin, Yang

2017-04-20

Organ dose calculations performed using human phantoms can provide estimates of astronauts' health risks due to cosmic radiation. However, the characteristics of such phantoms strongly affect the estimation precision. To investigate organ dose variations with body size and posture in human phantoms, a non-uniform rational B-spline boundary surfaces model was constructed based on cryosection images. This model was used to establish four phantoms with different body size and posture parameters, whose organs parameters were changed simultaneously and which were voxelised with 4 × 4 × 4 mm3 resolution. Then, using Monte Carlo transport code, the organ doses caused by ≤500 MeV isotropic incident protons were calculated. The dose variations due to body size differences within a certain range were negligible, and the doses received in crouching and standing-up postures were similar. Therefore, a standard Chinese phantom could be established, and posture changes cannot effectively protect astronauts during solar particle events. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Pathogenesis of Congenital Rubella Virus Infection in Human Fetuses: Viral Infection in the Ciliary Body Could Play an Important Role in Cataractogenesis.

PubMed

Nguyen, Thong Van; Pham, Van Hung; Abe, Kenji

2015-01-01

Development of congenital rubella syndrome associated with rubella virus infection during pregnancy is clinically important, but the pathogenicity of the virus remains unclear. Pathological examination was conducted on 3 aborted fetuses with congenital rubella infection. At autopsy, all 3 aborted fetuses showed congenital cataract confirmed by gross observation. Rubella virus infection occurred via systemic organs including circulating hematopoietic stem cells confirmed by immunohistochemical and molecular investigations, and major histopathogical changes were found in the liver. It is noteworthy that the virus infected the ciliary body of the eye, suggesting a possible cause of cataracts. Our study based on the pathological examination demonstrated that the rubella virus infection occurred via systemic organs of human fetuses. This fact was confirmed by immunohistochemistry and direct detection of viral RNA in multiple organs. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first report demonstrating that the rubella virus infection occurred via systemic organs of the human body. Importantly, virus infection of the ciliary body could play an important role in cataractogenesis.

Transcriptome identification of putative genes involved in protein catabolism and innate immune response in human body louse (Pediculicidae: Pediculus humanus).

PubMed

Pedra, Joao H F; Brandt, Amanda; Li, Hong-Mei; Westerman, Rick; Romero-Severson, Jeanne; Pollack, Richard J; Murdock, Larry L; Pittendrigh, Barry R

2003-11-01

Genomics information relating to human body lice is surprisingly scarce, and this has constrained studies of their physiology, immunology and vector biology. To identify novel body louse genes, we used engorged adult lice to generate a cDNA library. Initially, 1152 clones were screened for inserts, edited for removal of vector sequences and base pairs of poor quality, and viewed for splicing variations, gene families and polymorphism. Computational methods identified 506 inferred open reading frames including the first predicted louse defensin. The inferred defensin aligns well with other insect defensins and has highly conserved cysteine residues, as are known for other defensin sequences. Two cysteine and five serine proteinases were categorized according to their inferred catalytic sites. We also discovered seven putative ubiquitin-pathway genes and four iron metabolizing deduced enzymes. Finally, glutathione-S-transferases and cytochrome P450 genes were among the detoxification enzymes found. Results from this first systematic effort to discover human body louse genes should promote further studies in Phthiraptera and lice.

Plastination: ethical and medico-legal considerations.

PubMed

Bin, Paola; Conti, Adelaide; Buccelli, Claudio; Addeo, Giuseppe; Capasso, Emanuele; Piras, Mauro

2016-01-01

The international plastination phenomenon has proved to be immensely popular with audiences world-wide. Never before has the human body been exposed to public gaze in such an accessible manner. The exhibitions have perplexed many, included anatomists, some of whom find the display of human bodies unethical. The objective of this study is to review the attention on the use of plastination and exhibition of entire human bodies for non-educational or commercial purposes. The nature of these exhibitions and the uneasy balance between entertainment and education has caused heated debate. The possible legitimacy of the expression of one's will as far as exhibition purposes isn't considered sufficient for the indiscriminate use of a corpse despite the ethical necessity of respecting the wishes of individuals based on respect for the deceased. The informed consent of an individual represents only the most basic and minimal prerequisite for the use of the deceased's body for exhibition purposes, and is absolutely not enough on its own to justify its use in entertainment exhibitions or for the commercialization of the death.

The spatial-temporal dynamics of open surface water bodies in CONUS during 1984-2016

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zou, Z.; Xiao, X.; Dong, J.; Qin, Y.; Doughty, R.; Menarguez, M.; Wang, J.

2017-12-01

Open surface water bodies provided 80% of the total water withdrawals in the Contiguous United States (CONUS) in 1985-2010. The inter-annual variability and changing trends of surface water body areas have various impacts on the human society and ecosystems. This study made use of all Landsat 5, 7, and 8 surface reflectance archives ( 370,000 images) during 1984-2016 and a water index- and pixel-based approach to detect and map open surface water bodies in the cloud-based platform of Google Earth Engine. The year-long water body area and annual average water body area were calculated for each of the last 33 years and their inter-annual variations during 1984-2016 were analyzed through anomaly analysis while their changing trends were analyzed through linear regressions. The national annual average water body areas varied from 265,000 to 281,000 km2 during 1984-2016, which is 3% below to 3% above the mean value 274,000 km2. In state level, significant decreasing trends were found in both year-long and annual average water body areas in some states of dry climates in west and southwest U.S., including Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. In comparison, significant increasing trends were found in some states of wet climates in the southeast and north U.S., including Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, North Dakota and South Dakota. Open surface water body areas in CONUS decreased in relatively dry areas but increased in relatively wet areas. The relationships between open surface water body area variability and climate factors (precipitation, temperature) and human impacts (water exploitation) were also analyzed.

Body Composition Assessment in Axial CT Images Using FEM-Based Automatic Segmentation of Skeletal Muscle.

PubMed

Popuri, Karteek; Cobzas, Dana; Esfandiari, Nina; Baracos, Vickie; Jägersand, Martin

2016-02-01

The proportions of muscle and fat tissues in the human body, referred to as body composition is a vital measurement for cancer patients. Body composition has been recently linked to patient survival and the onset/recurrence of several types of cancers in numerous cancer research studies. This paper introduces a fully automatic framework for the segmentation of muscle and fat tissues from CT images to estimate body composition. We developed a novel finite element method (FEM) deformable model that incorporates a priori shape information via a statistical deformation model (SDM) within the template-based segmentation framework. The proposed method was validated on 1000 abdominal and 530 thoracic CT images and we obtained very good segmentation results with Jaccard scores in excess of 90% for both the muscle and fat regions.

[An interactive three-dimensional model of the human body].

PubMed

Liem, S L

2009-01-01

Driven by advanced computer technology, it is now possible to show the human anatomy on a computer. On the internet, the Visible Body programme makes it possible to navigate in all directions through the anatomical structures of the human body, using mouse and keyboard. Visible Body is a wonderful tool to give insight in the human structures, body functions and organs.

Pollution gets personal! A first population-based human biomonitoring study in Austria.

PubMed

Hohenblum, Philipp; Steinbichl, Philipp; Raffesberg, Wolfgang; Weiss, Stefan; Moche, Wolfgang; Vallant, Birgit; Scharf, Sigrid; Haluza, Daniela; Moshammer, Hanns; Kundi, Michael; Piegler, Brigitte; Wallner, Peter; Hutter, Hans-Peter

2012-02-01

Humans are exposed to a broad variety of man-made chemicals. Human biomonitoring (HBM) data reveal the individual body burden irrespective of sources and routes of uptake. A first population-based study was started in Austria in 2008 and was finished at the end of May 2011. This cross sectional study aims at documenting the extent, the distribution and the determinants of human exposure to industrial chemicals as well as proving the feasibility of a representative HBM study. Overall, 150 volunteers (50 families) were selected by stratified random sampling. Exposure to phthalates, trisphosphates, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE), bisphenol A (along with nonyl- and octyl phenol) and methyl mercury was assessed. Sixteen of 18 PBDE determined were detected above the limit of quantification (LOQ) in blood samples with #153 and #197 the most abundant species. Bisphenol A in urine was measured in a subsample of 25 with only 4 samples found above the LOQ. In 3 of 100 urine samples at least one of 8 trisphosphate compounds assessed was above the LOQ. These first analytical results of the human biomonitoring data show that the body burden of the Austrian population with respect to the assessed compounds is comparable to or even lower than in other European countries. Overall, the study revealed that in order to develop a feasible protocol for representative human biomonitoring studies procedures have to be optimized to allow for non-invasive sampling of body tissues in accordance with the main metabolic pathways. Procedures of participants' recruitment were, however, labor intensive and have to be improved. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Study on thin wideband applicator for detecting blood characteristics in human body

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bamba, Kazuki; Kuki, Takao; Nikawa, Yoshio

2016-11-01

Preventive care as well as early detection method and monitoring technique for diseases are highly attracted attention to increase quality of life. Noninvasive measurement method for blood characteristics in body is expected by patients with kidney dysfunction. Complex permittivity of blood is changed a few present at 6GHz. This change is caused by the change of water and albumin contents in blood. In this study, to detect blood characteristics in human body, experiments with phantom model has been performed using thin wideband applicator for examining microwave transmission up to 6GHz. The thin wideband applicator has advantages for detecting living body information in detail. The thin wideband applicator is designed based on Antipodal Vivaldi Antenna and is not required any balun and is very easy handling. Using developed Antipodal Vivaldi Antenna, transmission coefficient can be obtained as a function of thickness of phantom model with high sensitivity. Using this method, highly sensitive sensor for obtaining characteristics of blood in body can be developed.

Comparative assessment of endocrine modulators with oestrogenic activity: I. Definition of a hygiene-based margin of safety (HBMOS) for xeno-oestrogens against the background of European developments.

PubMed

Bolt, H M; Janning, P; Michna, H; Degen, G H

2001-01-01

A novel concept - the hygiene-based margin of safety (HBMOS) - is suggested for the assessment of the impact of potential endocrine modulators. It integrates exposure scenarios and potency data for industrial chemicals and naturally occurring dietary compounds with oestrogenic activity. An HBMOS is defined as a quotient of estimated daily intakes weighted by the relative in vivo potencies of these compounds. The Existing Chemicals Programme of the European Union provides Human and Environmental Risk Assessments of Existing Chemicals which include human exposure scenarios. Such exposure scenarios, along with potency estimates for endocrine activities, may provide a basis for a quantitative comparison of the potential endocrine-modulating effects of industrial chemicals with endocrine modulators as natural constituents of human diet. Natural phyto-oestrogens exhibit oestrogenic activity in vitro and in vivo. Important phyto-oestrogens for humans are isoflavones (daidzein, genistein) and lignans, with the highest quantities found in soybeans and flaxseed, respectively. Daily isoflavone exposures calculated for infants on soy-based formulae were in the ranges of 4.5-8 mg/kg body wt.; estimates for adults range up to 1 mg/kg body wt. The Senate Commission on the Evaluation of Food Safety (SKLM) of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft has also indicated a wide range of dietary exposures. For matters of risk assessment, the SKLM has based recommendations on dietary exposure scenarios, implying a daily intake of phyto-oestrogens in the order of 1 mg/kg body wt. On the basis of information compiled within the Existing Chemicals Programme of the EU, it appears that a daily human exposure to nonylphenol of 2 microg/kg body wt. may be a worst-case assumption, but which is based on valid scenarios. The intake of octylphenol is much lower, due to a different use pattern and applications, and may be neglected. Data from migration studies led to estimations of the daily human uptake of bisphenol A of maximally 1 microg/kg body wt. On the basis of comparative data from uterotrophic assays in rats, with three consecutive days of oral applications involved, and taking the natural phyto-oestrogen daidzein as reference (= 1), relative uterotrophic activities in DA/Han rats follow the sequence: daidzein = 1; bisphenol A = 1; p-tertoctylphenol = 2; o, p'-DDT = 4; ethinyl oestradiol = 40,000. The derived values from exposure scenarios, as well as these relative potency values and bridging assumptions, led to calculations of HBMOS as a quantitative comparison of potential endocrine-modulating effects of industrial chemicals with those of natural constituents of human diet. HBMOS estimates for nonylphenol ranged between 250 and 500, dependent on bridging assumptions, and around 1000 for bisphenol A. The derivations of HBMOS were in full support of the conclusions reached by the SKLM of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The estimated HBMOS values for the industrial chemicals (nonylphenol, bisphenol A) appear sufficiently high to ensure the absence of a practical risk to human health under the present exposure conditions.

The 3D Human Motion Control Through Refined Video Gesture Annotation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jin, Yohan; Suk, Myunghoon; Prabhakaran, B.

In the beginning of computer and video game industry, simple game controllers consisting of buttons and joysticks were employed, but recently game consoles are replacing joystick buttons with novel interfaces such as the remote controllers with motion sensing technology on the Nintendo Wii [1] Especially video-based human computer interaction (HCI) technique has been applied to games, and the representative game is 'Eyetoy' on the Sony PlayStation 2. Video-based HCI technique has great benefit to release players from the intractable game controller. Moreover, in order to communicate between humans and computers, video-based HCI is very crucial since it is intuitive, easy to get, and inexpensive. On the one hand, extracting semantic low-level features from video human motion data is still a major challenge. The level of accuracy is really dependent on each subject's characteristic and environmental noises. Of late, people have been using 3D motion-capture data for visualizing real human motions in 3D space (e.g, 'Tiger Woods' in EA Sports, 'Angelina Jolie' in Bear-Wolf movie) and analyzing motions for specific performance (e.g, 'golf swing' and 'walking'). 3D motion-capture system ('VICON') generates a matrix for each motion clip. Here, a column is corresponding to a human's sub-body part and row represents time frames of data capture. Thus, we can extract sub-body part's motion only by selecting specific columns. Different from low-level feature values of video human motion, 3D human motion-capture data matrix are not pixel values, but is closer to human level of semantics.

Total Body Capacitance for Estimating Human Basal Metabolic Rate in an Egyptian Population

PubMed Central

M. Abdel-Mageed, Samir; I. Mohamed, Ehab

2016-01-01

Determining basal metabolic rate (BMR) is important for estimating total energy needs in the human being yet, concerns have been raised regarding the suitability of sex-specific equations based on age and weight for its calculation on an individual or population basis. It has been shown that body cell mass (BCM) is the body compartment responsible for BMR. The objectives of this study were to investigate the relationship between total body capacitance (TBC), which is considered as an expression for BCM, and BMR and to develop a formula for calculating BMR in comparison with widely used equations. Fifty healthy nonsmoking male volunteers [mean age (± SD): 24.93 ± 4.15 year and body mass index (BMI): 25.63 ± 3.59 kg/m2] and an equal number of healthy nonsmoking females matched for age and BMI were recruited for the study. TBC and BMR were measured for all participants using octopolar bioelectric impedance analysis and indirect calorimetry techniques, respectively. A significant regressing equation based on the covariates: sex, weight, and TBC for estimating BMR was derived (R=0.96, SEE=48.59 kcal, and P<0.0001), which will be useful for nutritional and health status assessment for both individuals and populations. PMID:27127453

Statistical analysis of whole-body absorption depending on anatomical human characteristics at a frequency of 2.1 GHz.

PubMed

Habachi, A El; Conil, E; Hadjem, A; Vazquez, E; Wong, M F; Gati, A; Fleury, G; Wiart, J

2010-04-07

In this paper, we propose identification of the morphological factors that may impact the whole-body averaged specific absorption rate (WBSAR). This study is conducted for the case of exposure to a front plane wave at a 2100 MHz frequency carrier. This study is based on the development of different regression models for estimating the WBSAR as a function of morphological factors. For this purpose, a database of 12 anatomical human models (phantoms) has been considered. Also, 18 supplementary phantoms obtained using the morphing technique were generated to build the required relation. This paper presents three models based on external morphological factors such as the body surface area, the body mass index or the body mass. These models show good results in estimating the WBSAR (<10%) for families obtained by the morphing technique, but these are still less accurate (30%) when applied to different original phantoms. This study stresses the importance of the internal morphological factors such as muscle and fat proportions in characterization of the WBSAR. The regression models are then improved using internal morphological factors with an estimation error of approximately 10% on the WBSAR. Finally, this study is suitable for establishing the statistical distribution of the WBSAR for a given population characterized by its morphology.

Statistical analysis of whole-body absorption depending on anatomical human characteristics at a frequency of 2.1 GHz

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

El Habachi, A.; Conil, E.; Hadjem, A.; Vazquez, E.; Wong, M. F.; Gati, A.; Fleury, G.; Wiart, J.

2010-04-01

In this paper, we propose identification of the morphological factors that may impact the whole-body averaged specific absorption rate (WBSAR). This study is conducted for the case of exposure to a front plane wave at a 2100 MHz frequency carrier. This study is based on the development of different regression models for estimating the WBSAR as a function of morphological factors. For this purpose, a database of 12 anatomical human models (phantoms) has been considered. Also, 18 supplementary phantoms obtained using the morphing technique were generated to build the required relation. This paper presents three models based on external morphological factors such as the body surface area, the body mass index or the body mass. These models show good results in estimating the WBSAR (<10%) for families obtained by the morphing technique, but these are still less accurate (30%) when applied to different original phantoms. This study stresses the importance of the internal morphological factors such as muscle and fat proportions in characterization of the WBSAR. The regression models are then improved using internal morphological factors with an estimation error of approximately 10% on the WBSAR. Finally, this study is suitable for establishing the statistical distribution of the WBSAR for a given population characterized by its morphology.

Skeletal muscle

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

There are approximately 650-850 muscles in the human body these include skeletal (striated), smooth and cardiac muscle. The approximation is based on what some anatomists consider separate muscle or muscle systems. Muscles are classified based on their anatomy (striated vs. smooth) and if they are v...

[Nuclear techniques in nutrition: assessment of body fat and intake of human milk in breast-fed infants].

PubMed

Pallaro, Anabel; Tarducci, Gabriel

2014-12-01

The application of nuclear techniques in the area of nutrition is safe because they use stable isotopes. The deuterium dilution method is used in body composition and human milk intake analysis. It is a reference method for body fat and validates inexpensive tools because of its accuracy, simplicity of application in individuals and population and the background of its usefulness in adults and children as an evaluation tool in clinical and health programs. It is a non-invasive technique as it uses saliva, which facilitates the assessment in pediatric populations. Changes in body fat are associated with non-communicable diseases; moreover, normal weight individuals with high fat deposition were reported. Furthermore, this technique is the only accurate way to determine whether infants are exclusively breast-fed and validate conventional methods based on surveys to mothers.

A Geology Sampling System for Small Bodies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hood, A. D.; Naids, A. J.; Graff, T.; Abell, P.

2015-01-01

Human exploration of Small Bodies is being investigated as a precursor to a Mars surface mission. Asteroids, comets, dwarf planets, and the moons of Mars all fall into this Small Bodies category and some are being discussed as potential mission tar-gets. Obtaining geological samples for return to Earth will be a major objective for any mission to a Small Body. Currently the knowledge base for geology sampling in microgravity is in its infancy. Furthermore, humans interacting with non-engineered surfaces in a microgravity environment poses unique challenges. In preparation for such missions, a team at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) John-son Space Center (JSC) has been working to gain experience on how to safely obtain numerous sample types in such an environment. This abstract briefly summarizes the type of samples the science community is interested in, discusses an integrated geology sampling solution, and highlights some of the unique challenges associated with this type of exploration.

Numerical Investigation of a Chip Printed Antenna Performances for Wireless Implantable Body Area Network Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramli, N. H.; Jaafar, H.; Lee, Y. S.

2018-03-01

Recently, wireless implantable body area network (WiBAN) system become an active area of research due to their various applications such as healthcare, support systems for specialized occupations and personal communications. Biomedical sensors networks mounted in the human body have drawn greater attention for health care monitoring systems. The implantable chip printed antenna for WiBAN applications is designed and the antenna performances is investigated in term of gain, efficiency, return loss, operating bandwidth and radiation pattern at different environments. This paper is presents the performances of implantable chip printed antenna in selected part of human body (hand, chest, leg, heart and skull). The numerical investigation is done by using human voxel model in built in the CST Microwave Studio Software. Results proved that the chip printed antenna is suitable to implant in the human hand model. The human hand model has less complex structure as it consists of skin, fat, muscle, blood and bone. Moreover, the antenna is implanted under the skin. Therefore the signal propagation path length to the base station at free space environment is considerably short. The antenna’s gain, efficiency and Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) are - 13.62dBi, 1.50 % and 0.12 W/kg respectively; which confirms the safety of the antenna usage. The results of the investigations can be used as guidance while designing chip implantable antenna in future.

Understanding Differences in the Body Burden–Age Relationships of Bioaccumulating Contaminants Based on Population Cross Sections versus Individuals

PubMed Central

Quinn, Cristina L.

2012-01-01

Background: Body burdens of persistent bioaccumulative contaminants estimated from the cross-sectional biomonitoring of human populations are often plotted against age. Such relationships have previously been assumed to reflect the role of age in bioaccumulation. Objectives: We used a mechanistic modeling approach to reproduce concentration-versus-age relationships and investigate factors that influence them. Method: CoZMoMAN is an environmental fate and human food chain bioaccumulation model that estimates time trends in human body burdens in response to time-variant environmental emissions. Trends of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congener 153 concentrations versus age for population cross sections were estimated using simulated longitudinal data for individual women born at different times. The model was also used to probe the influence of partitioning and degradation properties, length of emissions, and model assumptions regarding lipid content and liver metabolism on concentration–age trends of bioaccumulative and persistent contaminants. Results: Body burden–age relationships for population cross sections and individuals over time are not equivalent. The time lapse between the peak in emissions and sample collection for biomonitoring is the most influential factor controlling the shape of concentration–age trends for chemicals with human metabolic half-lives longer than 1 year. Differences in observed concentration–age trends for PCBs and polybrominated diphenyl ethers are consistent with differences in emission time trends and human metabolic half-lives. Conclusions: Bioaccumulation does not monotonically increase with age. Our model suggests that the main predictors of cross-sectional body burden trends with age are the amount of time elapsed after peak emissions and the human metabolic and environmental degradation rates. PMID:22472302

Modeling and analysis of visual digital impact model for a Chinese human thorax.

PubMed

Zhu, Jin; Wang, Kai-Ming; Li, Shu; Liu, Hai-Yan; Jing, Xiao; Li, Xiao-Fang; Liu, Yi-He

2017-01-01

To establish a three-dimensional finite element model of the human chest for engineering research on individual protection. Computed tomography (CT) scanning data were used for three-dimensional reconstruction with the medical image reconstruction software Mimics. The finite element method (FEM) preprocessing software ANSYS ICEM CFD was used for cell mesh generation, and the relevant material behavior parameters of all of the model's parts were specified. The finite element model was constructed with the FEM software, and the model availability was verified based on previous cadaver experimental data. A finite element model approximating the anatomical structure of the human chest was established, and the model's simulation results conformed to the results of the cadaver experiment overall. Segment data of the human body and specialized software can be utilized for FEM model reconstruction to satisfy the need for numerical analysis of shocks to the human chest in engineering research on body mechanics.

Evaluation of Propagation Characteristics Using the Human Body as an Antenna

PubMed Central

Li, Jingzhen; Liu, Yuhang; Hao, Yang

2017-01-01

In this paper, an inhomogeneous human body model was presented to investigate the propagation characteristics when the human body was used as an antenna to achieve signal transmission. Specifically, the channel gain of four scenarios, namely, (1) both TX electrode and RX electrode were placed in the air, (2) TX electrode was attached on the human body, and RX electrode was placed in the air, (3) TX electrode was placed in the air, and RX electrode was attached on the human body, (4) both the TX electrode and RX electrode were attached on the human body, were studied through numerical simulation in the frequency range 1 MHz to 90 MHz. Furthermore, the comparisons of input efficiency, accepted efficiency, total efficiency, absorption power of human body, and electric field distribution of different distances of four aforementioned scenarios were explored when the frequency was at 44 MHz. In addition, the influences of different human tissues, electrode position, and the distance between electrode and human body on the propagation characteristics were investigated respectively at 44 MHz. The results showed that the channel gain of Scenario 4 was the maximum when the frequency was from 1 MHz to 90 MHz. The propagation characteristics were almost independent of electrode position when the human body was using as an antenna. However, as the distance between TX electrode and human body increased, the channel gain decreased rapidly. The simulations were verified by experimental measurements. The results showed that the simulations were in agreement with the measurements. PMID:29232905

Evaluation of Propagation Characteristics Using the Human Body as an Antenna.

PubMed

Li, Jingzhen; Nie, Zedong; Liu, Yuhang; Wang, Lei; Hao, Yang

2017-12-11

In this paper, an inhomogeneous human body model was presented to investigate the propagation characteristics when the human body was used as an antenna to achieve signal transmission. Specifically, the channel gain of four scenarios, namely, (1) both TX electrode and RX electrode were placed in the air, (2) TX electrode was attached on the human body, and RX electrode was placed in the air, (3) TX electrode was placed in the air, and RX electrode was attached on the human body, (4) both the TX electrode and RX electrode were attached on the human body, were studied through numerical simulation in the frequency range 1 MHz to 90 MHz. Furthermore, the comparisons of input efficiency, accepted efficiency, total efficiency, absorption power of human body, and electric field distribution of different distances of four aforementioned scenarios were explored when the frequency was at 44 MHz. In addition, the influences of different human tissues, electrode position, and the distance between electrode and human body on the propagation characteristics were investigated respectively at 44 MHz. The results showed that the channel gain of Scenario 4 was the maximum when the frequency was from 1 MHz to 90 MHz. The propagation characteristics were almost independent of electrode position when the human body was using as an antenna. However, as the distance between TX electrode and human body increased, the channel gain decreased rapidly. The simulations were verified by experimental measurements. The results showed that the simulations were in agreement with the measurements.

Acoustical Method of Whole-Body Hydration Status Monitoring.

PubMed

Sarvazyan, A P; Tsyuryupa, S N; Calhoun, M; Utter, A

2016-07-01

An acoustical handheld hydration monitor (HM) for assessing the water balance of the human body was developed. Dehydration is a critical public health problem. Many elderly over age of 65 are particularly vulnerable as are infants and young children. Given that dehydration is both preventable and reversible, the need for an easy-to-perform method for the detection of water imbalance is of the utmost clinical importance. The HM is based on an experimental fact that ultrasound velocity in muscle is a linear function of water content and can be referenced to the hydration status of the body. Studies on the validity of HM for the assessment of whole-body hydration status were conducted in the Appalachian State University, USA, on healthy young adults and on elderly subjects residing at an assisted living facility. The HM was able to track changes in total body water during periods of acute dehydration and rehydration in athletes and day-to-day and diurnal variability of hydration in elderly. Results of human studies indicate that HM has a potential to become an efficient tool for detecting abnormal changes in the body hydration status.

Acoustical method of whole-body hydration status monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sarvazyan, A. P.; Tsyuryupa, S. N.; Calhoun, M.; Utter, A.

2016-07-01

An acoustical handheld hydration monitor (HM) for assessing the water balance of the human body was developed. Dehydration is a critical public health problem. Many elderly over age of 65 are particularly vulnerable as are infants and young children. Given that dehydration is both preventable and reversible, the need for an easy-to-perform method for the detection of water imbalance is of the utmost clinical importance. The HM is based on an experimental fact that ultrasound velocity in muscle is a linear function of water content and can be referenced to the hydration status of the body. Studies on the validity of HM for the assessment of whole-body hydration status were conducted in the Appalachian State University, USA, on healthy young adults and on elderly subjects residing at an assisted living facility. The HM was able to track changes in total body water during periods of acute dehydration and rehydration in athletes and day-to-day and diurnal variability of hydration in elderly. Results of human studies indicate that HM has a potential to become an efficient tool for detecting abnormal changes in the body hydration status.

Sleep and Predicted Cognitive Performance of New Cadets during Cadet Basic Training at the United States Military Academy

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-09-01

7 B. SLEEP ARCHITECTURE..................................7 1. Circadian Rhythm and Human Sleep Drive...body temperature. Van Dongen & Dinges, 2000 ....10 Figure 2. EEG of Human Brain Activity During Sleep. http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~jmp...the predicted levels of human performance based on circadian rhythms , amount and quality of sleep, and combines cognitive performance 5 predictions

Linear Representation of Emotions in Whole Persons by Combining Facial and Bodily Expressions in the Extrastriate Body Area

PubMed Central

Yang, Xiaoli; Xu, Junhai; Cao, Linjing; Li, Xianglin; Wang, Peiyuan; Wang, Bin; Liu, Baolin

2018-01-01

Our human brain can rapidly and effortlessly perceive a person’s emotional state by integrating the isolated emotional faces and bodies into a whole. Behavioral studies have suggested that the human brain encodes whole persons in a holistic rather than part-based manner. Neuroimaging studies have also shown that body-selective areas prefer whole persons to the sum of their parts. The body-selective areas played a crucial role in representing the relationships between emotions expressed by different parts. However, it remains unclear in which regions the perception of whole persons is represented by a combination of faces and bodies, and to what extent the combination can be influenced by the whole person’s emotions. In the present study, functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected when participants performed an emotion distinction task. Multi-voxel pattern analysis was conducted to examine how the whole person-evoked responses were associated with the face- and body-evoked responses in several specific brain areas. We found that in the extrastriate body area (EBA), the whole person patterns were most closely correlated with weighted sums of face and body patterns, using different weights for happy expressions but equal weights for angry and fearful ones. These results were unique for the EBA. Our findings tentatively support the idea that the whole person patterns are represented in a part-based manner in the EBA, and modulated by emotions. These data will further our understanding of the neural mechanism underlying perceiving emotional persons. PMID:29375348

Sustaining cyborgs: sensing and tuning agencies of pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators.

PubMed

Oudshoorn, Nelly

2015-02-01

Recently there has been a renewed interest in cyborgs, and particularly in new and emerging fusions of humans and technologies related to the development of human enhancement technologies. These studies reflect a trend to follow new and emerging technologies. In this article, I argue that it is important to study 'older' and more familiar cyborgs as well. Studying 'the old' is important because it enables us to recognize hybrids' embodied experiences. This article addresses two of these older hybrids: pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators inserted in the bodies of people suffering from heart-rhythm disturbances. My concern with hybrid bodies is that internal devices seem to present a complex and neglected case if we wish to understand human agency. Their 'users' seem to be passive because they cannot exert any direct control over the working of their devices. Technologies inside bodies challenge a longstanding tradition of theorizing human-technology relations only in terms of technologies external to the body. Cyborg theory is problematic as well because most studies tend to conceptualize the cyborg merely as a discursive entity and silence the voices of people living as cyborgs. Inspired by feminist research that foregrounds the materiality of the lived and intimate relations between bodies and technologies, I argue that creating these intimate relations requires patients' active involvement in sustaining their hybrid bodies. Based on observations of these monitoring practices in a Dutch hospital and interviews with patients and technicians, the article shows that heart cyborgs are far from passive. On the contrary, their unique experience in sensing the entangled agencies of technologies and their own heart plays a crucial role in sustaining their hybrid bodies.

[Analysis on property of meridian supramolecules by biological evolution path].

PubMed

Deng, Kaiwen; Tao, Yeqin; Tang, Wenhan; He, Fuyuan; Liu, Wenlong; Shi, Jilian; Yang, Yantao; Zhou, Yiqun; Chang, Xiaorong

2017-03-12

With human placed in the whole nature, by following the biologic evolution path, the property of channel structure for "imprinting template" in meridian and zang-fu was explored with supramolecular chemistry. In the history of biologic evolution, each molecule in "molecule society" gradually developed into various highly-ordered supramolecular bodies based on self-identification, self-assembly, self-organization, self-replicating of"imprinting template", and thereby the original biochemical system was established, and finally evolved into human. In the forming process of supramolecular bodies, the channel structure of"imprinting template" in guest supramolecular bodies would be kept by host supramolecular bodies, and communicate with the outside to exchange materials, energy, information, otherwise life phenomenon could not continue, for which it was the chemical nature of biolo-gical supramolecular bodies for body to develop meridian. Therefore, the human was a gigantic and complicated supramolecules body in biological nature, and possessed the supramolecules "imprinting template" at each stage of evolution, for which the meridians were formed. When meridians converged, acupoints appeared; when acupointsconverged, zang-fu appeared. With the promotion of the blood from heart, according to"imprinting template", the guest supramolecular bodies and host meridian produced qi -analysis, which was the qi -phenomenon of guest in meridian. It presented as zang-fu image of physiology and pathology as well as action regularities of medication and acupuncture tolerance, by which current various meridian viewpoints could be explained and propose the hypothesis of meridian supramolecular bodies. The meridian and its phenomenon was decide by its "imprinting template" of supramolecular bodies and self-reaction regularities, which abided through the living nature. This was the substance for meridian biology.

[The heavy ion irradiation influence on the thermodynamic parameters of liquids in human body].

PubMed

Vlasenko, T S; Bulavin, L A; Sysoev, V M

2014-01-01

In this manuscript a theoretical model describing the influence of the heavy ion radiotherapy on the liquid matter in the human body is suggested. Based on the fundamental equations of Bogoliubov chain the effective temperatures in the case of constant particles fluent are found in the context of single component model. An existence of such temperatures allows the use of equilibrium thermodynamics formalism to nonequilibrium stationary state. The obtained results provide the possibility of predicting the liquid matter structural changes in the biological systems in the area influenced by the heavy ion beams.

A miniaturized micro strip antenna based on sinusoidal patch geometry for implantable biomedical applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ibrahim, Omar A.; Elwi, Taha A.; Islam, Naz E.

2012-11-01

A miniaturized microstrip antenna is analyzed for implantable biomedical applications. The antenna is designed using two different commercial software packages, CST Microwave Studio and HFSS, to validate the results. The proposed design operates in the WMTS frequency band. The antenna performance is tested inside the human body, Hugo model. The antenna design is readjusted to get the desired resonant frequency. The resonant frequency, bandwidth, gain, and radiation pattern of the proposed antenna are provided in this paper. Furthermore, the effect of losses inside human body due to the fat layer is recognized.

Scaling approach in predicting the seatbelt loading and kinematics of vulnerable occupants: How far can we go?

PubMed

Nie, Bingbing; Forman, Jason L; Joodaki, Hamed; Wu, Taotao; Kent, Richard W

2016-09-01

Occupants with extreme body size and shape, such as the small female or the obese, were reported to sustain high risk of injury in motor vehicle crashes (MVCs). Dimensional scaling approaches are widely used in injury biomechanics research based on the assumption of geometrical similarity. However, its application scope has not been quantified ever since. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the valid range of scaling approaches in predicting the impact response of the occupants with focus on the vulnerable populations. The present analysis was based on a data set consisting of 60 previously reported frontal crash tests in the same sled buck representing a typical mid-size passenger car. The tests included two categories of human surrogates: 9 postmortem human surrogates (PMHS) of different anthropometries (stature range: 147-189 cm; weight range: 27-151 kg) and 5 anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs). The impact response was considered including the restraint loads and the kinematics of multiple body segments. For each category of the human surrogates, a mid-size occupant was selected as a baseline and the impact response was scaled specifically to another subject based on either the body mass (body shape) or stature (the overall body size). To identify the valid range of the scaling approach, the scaled response was compared to the experimental results using assessment scores on the peak value, peak timing (the time when the peak value occurred), and the overall curve shape ranging from 0 (extremely poor) to 1 (perfect match). Scores of 0.7 to 0.8 and 0.8 to 1.0 indicate fair and acceptable prediction. For both ATDs and PMHS, the scaling factor derived from body mass proved an overall good predictor of the peak timing for the shoulder belt (0.868, 0.829) and the lap belt (0.858, 0.774) and for the peak value of the lap belt force (0.796, 0.869). Scaled kinematics based on body stature provided fair or acceptable prediction on the overall head/shoulder kinematics (0.741, 0.822 for the head; 0.817, 0.728 for the shoulder) regardless of the anthropometry. The scaling approach exhibited poor prediction capability on the curve shape for the restraint force (0.494 and 0.546 for the shoulder belt; 0.585 and 0.530 for the lap belt). It also cannot well predict the excursion of the pelvis and the knee. The results revealed that for the peak lap belt force and the forward motion of the head and shoulder, the underlying linear relationship with body size and shape is valid over a wide anthropometric range. The chaotic nature of the dynamic response cannot be fully recovered by the assumption of the whole-body geometrical similarity, especially for the curve shape. The valid range of the scaling approach established in this study can be reasonably referenced in predicting the impact response of a given specific population with expected deviation. Application of this knowledge also includes proposing strategies for restraint configuration and providing reference for ATD and/or human body model (HBM) development for vulnerable occupants.

The effect of precrash velocity reduction on occupant response using a human body finite element model.

PubMed

Guleyupoglu, B; Schap, J; Kusano, K D; Gayzik, F S

2017-07-04

The objective of this study is to use a validated finite element model of the human body and a certified model of an anthropomorphic test dummy (ATD) to evaluate the effect of simulated precrash braking on driver kinematics, restraint loads, body loads, and computed injury criteria in 4 commonly injured body regions. The Global Human Body Models Consortium (GHBMC) 50th percentile male occupant (M50-O) and the Humanetics Hybrid III 50th percentile models were gravity settled in the driver position of a generic interior equipped with an advanced 3-point belt and driver airbag. Fifteen simulations per model (30 total) were conducted, including 4 scenarios at 3 severity levels: median, severe, and the U.S. New Car Assessment Program (U.S.-NCAP) and 3 extra per model with high-intensity braking. The 4 scenarios were no precollision system (no PCS), forward collision warning (FCW), FCW with prebraking assist (FCW+PBA), and FCW and PBA with autonomous precrash braking (FCW + PBA + PB). The baseline ΔV was 17, 34, and 56.4 kph for median, severe, and U.S.-NCAP scenarios, respectively, and were based on crash reconstructions from NASS/CDS. Pulses were then developed based on the assumed precrash systems equipped. Restraint properties and the generic pulse used were based on literature. In median crash severity cases, little to no risk (<10% risk for Abbreviated injury Scale [AIS] 3+) was found for all injury measures for both models. In the severe set of cases, little to no risk for AIS 3+ injury was also found for all injury measures. In NCAP cases, highest risk was typically found with No PCS and lowest with FCW + PBA + PB. In the higher intensity braking cases (1.0-1.4 g), head injury criterion (HIC), brain injury criterion (BrIC), and chest deflection injury measures increased with increased braking intensity. All other measures for these cases tended to decrease. The ATD also predicted and trended similar to the human body models predictions for both the median, severe, and NCAP cases. Forward excursion for both models decreased across median, severe, and NCAP cases and diverged from each other in cases above 1.0 g of braking intensity. The addition of precrash systems simulated through reduced precrash speeds caused reductions in some injury criteria, whereas others (chest deflection, HIC, and BrIC) increased due to a modified occupant position. The human model and ATD models trended similarly in nearly all cases with greater risk indicated in the human model. These results suggest the need for integrated safety systems that have restraints that optimize the occupant's position during precrash braking and prior to impact.

Efficient and robust model-to-image alignment using 3D scale-invariant features.

PubMed

Toews, Matthew; Wells, William M

2013-04-01

This paper presents feature-based alignment (FBA), a general method for efficient and robust model-to-image alignment. Volumetric images, e.g. CT scans of the human body, are modeled probabilistically as a collage of 3D scale-invariant image features within a normalized reference space. Features are incorporated as a latent random variable and marginalized out in computing a maximum a posteriori alignment solution. The model is learned from features extracted in pre-aligned training images, then fit to features extracted from a new image to identify a globally optimal locally linear alignment solution. Novel techniques are presented for determining local feature orientation and efficiently encoding feature intensity in 3D. Experiments involving difficult magnetic resonance (MR) images of the human brain demonstrate FBA achieves alignment accuracy similar to widely-used registration methods, while requiring a fraction of the memory and computation resources and offering a more robust, globally optimal solution. Experiments on CT human body scans demonstrate FBA as an effective system for automatic human body alignment where other alignment methods break down. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Efficient and Robust Model-to-Image Alignment using 3D Scale-Invariant Features

PubMed Central

Toews, Matthew; Wells, William M.

2013-01-01

This paper presents feature-based alignment (FBA), a general method for efficient and robust model-to-image alignment. Volumetric images, e.g. CT scans of the human body, are modeled probabilistically as a collage of 3D scale-invariant image features within a normalized reference space. Features are incorporated as a latent random variable and marginalized out in computing a maximum a-posteriori alignment solution. The model is learned from features extracted in pre-aligned training images, then fit to features extracted from a new image to identify a globally optimal locally linear alignment solution. Novel techniques are presented for determining local feature orientation and efficiently encoding feature intensity in 3D. Experiments involving difficult magnetic resonance (MR) images of the human brain demonstrate FBA achieves alignment accuracy similar to widely-used registration methods, while requiring a fraction of the memory and computation resources and offering a more robust, globally optimal solution. Experiments on CT human body scans demonstrate FBA as an effective system for automatic human body alignment where other alignment methods break down. PMID:23265799

[Anatomical discoveries and concept of human body structure in Nan-jing (Classic of Questioning)].

PubMed

Yang, Shi-zhe

2006-04-01

What Nan-jing (Classic of Questioning) contributes to the anatomical discoveries and concepts of human body structure in TCM is that it clarifies the concept, function and anatomical essence of viscera and bowels. It is the first. book that clearly defines the triple jiao as a "qi bowel", This statement is a typical example of Chinese dualistic system of its view on the human body, consisting of physical and spiritual components. This has stirred up confusion for modern interpretation and, as a result, some thought the visceral theory in the book is not based on substantial basis of anatomy. However, the Forty-second Question in Nan-jing not only carries the contents about Wei (stomach), Xiaochang (small intestine), Huichang (large intestine) and Guangchang (anus) in the chapter of "Intestine and Stomach" in Lingshu Jing (Miraculous Pivot), but also changes these names to those we actually use today in the latter chapters; and it also records the gross anatomical shape and size of gall bladder, urinary bladder and all the five viscerae. So, Nan-jing discusses the structure of human body in ancient times, and is equivalent to an integrated science of modern physiology and anatomy, and establishes a solid basis for the fundamental theory of TCM.

BMI not WHR modulates BOLD fMRI responses in a sub-cortical reward network when participants judge the attractiveness of human female bodies.

PubMed

Holliday, Ian E; Longe, Olivia A; Thai, N Jade; Hancock, Peter J B; Tovée, Martin J

2011-01-01

In perceptual terms, the human body is a complex 3d shape which has to be interpreted by the observer to judge its attractiveness. Both body mass and shape have been suggested as strong predictors of female attractiveness. Normally body mass and shape co-vary, and it is difficult to differentiate their separate effects. A recent study suggested that altering body mass does not modulate activity in the reward mechanisms of the brain, but shape does. However, using computer generated female body-shaped greyscale images, based on a Principal Component Analysis of female bodies, we were able to construct images which covary with real female body mass (indexed with BMI) and not with body shape (indexed with WHR), and vice versa. Twelve observers (6 male and 6 female) rated these images for attractiveness during an fMRI study. The attractiveness ratings were correlated with changes in BMI and not WHR. Our primary fMRI results demonstrated that in addition to activation in higher visual areas (such as the extrastriate body area), changing BMI also modulated activity in the caudate nucleus, and other parts of the brain reward system. This shows that BMI, not WHR, modulates reward mechanisms in the brain and we infer that this may have important implications for judgements of ideal body size in eating disordered individuals.

BMI Not WHR Modulates BOLD fMRI Responses in a Sub-Cortical Reward Network When Participants Judge the Attractiveness of Human Female Bodies

PubMed Central

Holliday, Ian E.; Longe, Olivia A.; Thai, N. Jade; Hancock, Peter J. B.; Tovée, Martin J.

2011-01-01

In perceptual terms, the human body is a complex 3d shape which has to be interpreted by the observer to judge its attractiveness. Both body mass and shape have been suggested as strong predictors of female attractiveness. Normally body mass and shape co-vary, and it is difficult to differentiate their separate effects. A recent study suggested that altering body mass does not modulate activity in the reward mechanisms of the brain, but shape does. However, using computer generated female body-shaped greyscale images, based on a Principal Component Analysis of female bodies, we were able to construct images which covary with real female body mass (indexed with BMI) and not with body shape (indexed with WHR), and vice versa. Twelve observers (6 male and 6 female) rated these images for attractiveness during an fMRI study. The attractiveness ratings were correlated with changes in BMI and not WHR. Our primary fMRI results demonstrated that in addition to activation in higher visual areas (such as the extrastriate body area), changing BMI also modulated activity in the caudate nucleus, and other parts of the brain reward system. This shows that BMI, not WHR, modulates reward mechanisms in the brain and we infer that this may have important implications for judgements of ideal body size in eating disordered individuals. PMID:22102883

Thermal responses and perceptions under distinct ambient temperature and wind conditions.

PubMed

Shimazaki, Yasuhiro; Yoshida, Atsumasa; Yamamoto, Takanori

2015-01-01

Wind conditions are widely recognized to influence the thermal states of humans. In this study, we investigated the relationship between wind conditions and thermal perception and energy balance in humans. The study participants were exposed for 20 min to 3 distinct ambient temperatures, wind speeds, and wind angles. During the exposure, the skin temperatures as a physiological reaction and mental reactions of the human body were measured and the energy balance was calculated based on the human thermal-load method. The results indicate that the human thermal load is an accurate indicator of human thermal states under all wind conditions. Furthermore, wind speed and direction by themselves do not account for the human thermal experience. Because of the thermoregulation that occurs to prevent heat loss and protect the core of the body, a low skin temperature was maintained and regional differences in skin temperature were detected under cool ambient conditions. Thus, the human thermal load, which represents physiological parameters such as skin-temperature change, adequately describes the mixed sensation of the human thermal experience. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

[The anatomical revolution and the transition of anatomical conception in late imperial china].

PubMed

Sihn, Kyu Hwan

2012-04-30

This paper aimed to examine the anatomical revolution from Yilingaicuo (Correcting the Errors of Medicine) and Quantixinlun(Outline of Anatomy and Physiology) in late imperial China. As the cephalocentrism which the brain superintend human operation of the mind was diffused in China since 16th century, the cephalocentrism and the cardiocentrism had competed for the hegemony of anatomical conception. Because of the advent of Yilingaicuo and Quantixinlun, the cephalocentrism became the main stream in the anatomical conception. The supporters of the Wang Yangming's Xinxue(the Learning of Heart and Mind) argued that the heart was the central organ of perception, sensitivity, and morality of the human body in medicine since 16th century. Even reformist and revolutionary intellectuals like Tan sitong and Mao zedong who had supported the Wang Yangming's Xinxue embraced the cephalocentrism in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. May Fourth intellectuals had not obsessed metaphysical interpretation of human body any more in the New Culture Movement in 1910s. They regarded human body as the object of research and writing. The anatomy was transformed into the instrumental knowledge for mutilation of the body. Yilingaicuo challenged the traditional conception of body, and Chinese intellectuals drew interest in the anatomy knowledge based on real mutilation. Quantixinlun based on Western medicine fueled a controversy about anatomy. Though new knowledge of anatomy was criticized by traditional Chinese medical doctors from the usefulness and morality of anatomy, nobody disavowed new knowledge of anatomy from the institutionalization of Western medicine in medical school. The internal development of cephalocentrism and positivism had influence on anatomy in China since 16th century. The advent of Yilingaicuo and Quantixinlun provided the milestone of new anatomy, though both sides represented traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine respectively. They contributed to the development of new knowledge of anatomy, getting over the metaphysical system of knowledge. Based on the internal development of anatomy, Chinese anatomy was half century late than Japanese anatomy founded on Dutch anatomy.

Human body and head characteristics as a communication medium for Body Area Network.

PubMed

Kifle, Yonatan; Hun-Seok Kim; Yoo, Jerald

2015-01-01

An in-depth investigation of the Body Channel Communication (BCC) under the environment set according to the IEEE 802.15.6 Body Area Network (BAN) standard is conducted to observe and characterize the human body as a communication medium. A thorough measurement of the human head as part of the human channel is also carried out. Human forehead, head to limb, and ear to ear channel is characterized. The channel gain of the human head follows the same bandpass profile of the human torso and limbs with the maximum channel gain occurring at 35MHz. The human body channel gain distribution histogram at given frequencies, while all the other parameters are held constant, exhibits a maximum variation of 2.2dB in the channel gain at the center frequency of the bandpass channel gain profile.

Blood-Based Detection of Radiation Exposure in Humans Based on Novel Phospho-Smc1 ELISA

PubMed Central

Ivey, Richard G.; Moore, Heather D.; Voytovich, Uliana J.; Thienes, Cortlandt P.; Lorentzen, Travis D.; Pogosova-Agadjanyan, Era L.; Frayo, Shani; Izaguirre, Venissa K.; Lundberg, Sally J.; Hedin, Lacey; Badiozamani, Kas Ray; Hoofnagle, Andrew N.; Stirewalt, Derek L.; Wang, Pei; Georges, George E.; Gopal, Ajay K.; Paulovich, Amanda G.

2011-01-01

The structural maintenance of chromosome 1 (Smc1) protein is a member of the highly conserved cohesin complex and is involved in sister chromatid cohesion. In response to ionizing radiation, Smc1 is phosphorylated at two sites, Ser-957 and Ser-966, and these phosphorylation events are dependent on the ATM protein kinase. In this study, we describe the generation of two novel ELISAs for quantifying phospho-Smc1Ser-957 and phospho-Smc1Ser-966. Using these novel assays, we quantify the kinetic and biodosimetric responses of human cells of hematological origin, including immortalized cells, as well as both quiescent and cycling primary human PBMC. Additionally, we demonstrate a robust in vivo response for phospho-Smc1Ser-957 and phospho-Smc1Ser-966 in lymphocytes of human patients after therapeutic exposure to ionizing radiation, including total-body irradiation, partial-body irradiation, and internal exposure to 131I. These assays are useful for quantifying the DNA damage response in experimental systems and potentially for the identification of individuals exposed to radiation after a radiological incident. PMID:21388270

Walking on a Line: A Motor Paradigm Using Rotation and Reflection Symmetry to Study Mental Body Transformations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thirioux, Berangere; Jorland, Gerard; Bret, Michel; Tramus, Marie-Helene; Berthoz, Alain

2009-01-01

Researchers have recently reintroduced the own-body in the center of the social interaction theory. From the discovery of the mirror neurons in the ventral premotor cortex of the monkey's brain, a human "embodied" model of interindividual relationship based on simulation processes has been advanced, according to which we tend to embody…

The Contribution of the Human Body in Young Children's Explanations About Shadow Formation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Herakleioti, Evagelia; Pantidos, Panagiotis

2016-02-01

This paper begins with the view that the generation of meaning is a multimodal process. Props, drawings, graphs, gestures, as well as speech and written text are all mediators through which students construct new knowledge. Each semiotic context makes a unique contribution to the conceptualization of scientific entities. The human body, in particular, can function as a factor in both representation and explanation, serving as a link between verbal discourse and setting. Considering this perspective, a body-based activity was designed for kindergarten children, involving the concept of a shadow. The 3-D arrangement of the light from the light source, the human body (the obstacle), and the resulting shadow plays a central role. Using their own bodies as obstacles to the light, the children were able to explore the direction of the light and to change the relative positions of the light source and the obstacle. They formed hypotheses and were able to test them by moving on the stage. This body-centered activity explicitly incorporates the rectilinear movement of light into the process of shadow formation, while also providing learning through direct experience. Positive effects on learning were achieved for the group of children who participated in the activity, while the video analysis showed that many of the children were able to use their bodies to transfer to a different setting the embodied knowledge they acquired. This, according to researchers in the field of science education, is a powerful indication of conceptual change.

A painless and constraint-free method to estimate viscoelastic passive dynamics of limbs' joints to support diagnosis of neuromuscular diseases.

PubMed

Venture, Gentiane; Nakamura, Yoshihiko; Yamane, Katsu; Hirashima, Masaya

2007-01-01

Though seldom identified, the human joints dynamics is important in the fields of medical robotics and medical research. We present a general solution to estimate in-vivo and simultaneously the passive dynamics of the human limbs' joints. It is based on the use of the multi-body description of the human body and its kinematics and dynamics computations. The linear passive joint dynamics of the shoulders and the elbows: stiffness, viscosity and friction, is estimated simultaneously using the linear least squares method. Acquisition of movements is achieved with an optical motion capture studio on one examinee during the clinical diagnosis of neuromuscular diseases. Experimental results are given and discussed.

Impact Response Comparison Between Parametric Human Models and Postmortem Human Subjects with a Wide Range of Obesity Levels.

PubMed

Zhang, Kai; Cao, Libo; Wang, Yulong; Hwang, Eunjoo; Reed, Matthew P; Forman, Jason; Hu, Jingwen

2017-10-01

Field data analyses have shown that obesity significantly increases the occupant injury risks in motor vehicle crashes, but the injury assessment tools for people with obesity are largely lacking. The objectives of this study were to use a mesh morphing method to rapidly generate parametric finite element models with a wide range of obesity levels and to evaluate their biofidelity against impact tests using postmortem human subjects (PMHS). Frontal crash tests using three PMHS seated in a vehicle rear seat compartment with body mass index (BMI) from 24 to 40 kg/m 2 were selected. To develop the human models matching the PMHS geometry, statistical models of external body shape, rib cage, pelvis, and femur were applied to predict the target geometry using age, sex, stature, and BMI. A mesh morphing method based on radial basis functions was used to rapidly morph a baseline human model into the target geometry. The model-predicted body excursions and injury measures were compared to the PMHS tests. Comparisons of occupant kinematics and injury measures between the tests and simulations showed reasonable correlations across the wide range of BMI levels. The parametric human models have the capability to account for the obesity effects on the occupant impact responses and injury risks. © 2017 The Obesity Society.

Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) hydrogel-based shape-adjustable polyimide films triggered by near-human-body temperature.

PubMed

Huanqing Cui; Xuemin Du; Juan Wang; Tianhong Tang; Tianzhun Wu

2016-08-01

Hydrogel-based shape-adjustable films were successfully fabricated via grafting poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) onto one side of polyimide (PI) films. The prepared PI-g-PNIPAM films exhibited rapid, reversible, and repeatable bending/unbending property by heating to near-human-body temperature (37 °C) or cooling to 25 °C. The excellent property of PI-g-PNIPAM films resulted from a lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of PNIPAM at about 32 °C. Varying the thickness of PNIPAM hydrogel layer regulated the thermo-responsive shape bending degree and response speed of PI-g-PNIPAM films. The thermo-induced shrinkage of hydrogel layers can tune the curvature of PI films, which have potential applications in the field of wearable and implantable devices.

A cascaded two-step Kalman filter for estimation of human body segment orientation using MEMS-IMU.

PubMed

Zihajehzadeh, S; Loh, D; Lee, M; Hoskinson, R; Park, E J

2014-01-01

Orientation of human body segments is an important quantity in many biomechanical analyses. To get robust and drift-free 3-D orientation, raw data from miniature body worn MEMS-based inertial measurement units (IMU) should be blended in a Kalman filter. Aiming at less computational cost, this work presents a novel cascaded two-step Kalman filter orientation estimation algorithm. Tilt angles are estimated in the first step of the proposed cascaded Kalman filter. The estimated tilt angles are passed to the second step of the filter for yaw angle calculation. The orientation results are benchmarked against the ones from a highly accurate tactical grade IMU. Experimental results reveal that the proposed algorithm provides robust orientation estimation in both kinematically and magnetically disturbed conditions.

Simulating the human body's microclimate using automatic coupling of CFD and an advanced thermoregulation model.

PubMed

Voelker, C; Alsaad, H

2018-05-01

This study aims to develop an approach to couple a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver to the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) thermal comfort model to accurately evaluate thermal comfort. The coupling was made using an iterative JavaScript to automatically transfer data for each individual segment of the human body back and forth between the CFD solver and the UCB model until reaching convergence defined by a stopping criterion. The location from which data are transferred to the UCB model was determined using a new approach based on the temperature difference between subsequent points on the temperature profile curve in the vicinity of the body surface. This approach was used because the microclimate surrounding the human body differs in thickness depending on the body segment and the surrounding environment. To accurately simulate the thermal environment, the numerical model was validated beforehand using experimental data collected in a climate chamber equipped with a thermal manikin. Furthermore, an example of the practical implementations of this coupling is reported in this paper through radiant floor cooling simulation cases, in which overall and local thermal sensation and comfort were investigated using the coupled UCB model. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Non-contact multi-radar smart probing of body orientation based on micro-Doppler signatures.

PubMed

Li, Yiran; Pal, Ranadip; Li, Changzhi

2014-01-01

Micro-Doppler signatures carry useful information about body movements and have been widely applied to different applications such as human activity recognition and gait analysis. In this paper, micro-Doppler signatures are used to identify body orientation. Four AC-coupled continuous-wave (CW) smart radar sensors were used to form a multiple-radar network to carry out the experiments in this paper. 162 tests were performed in total. The experiment results showed a 100% accuracy in recognizing eight body orientations, i.e., facing north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, and northwest.

Multichannel noninvasive human-machine interface via stretchable µm thick sEMG patches for robot manipulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhou, Ying; Wang, Youhua; Liu, Runfeng; Xiao, Lin; Zhang, Qin; Huang, YongAn

2018-01-01

Epidermal electronics (e-skin) emerging in recent years offer the opportunity to noninvasively and wearably extract biosignals from human bodies. The conventional processes of e-skin based on standard microelectronic fabrication processes and a variety of transfer printing methods, nevertheless, unquestionably constrains the size of the devices, posing a serious challenge to collecting signals via skin, the largest organ in the human body. Herein we propose a multichannel noninvasive human-machine interface (HMI) using stretchable surface electromyography (sEMG) patches to realize a robot hand mimicking human gestures. Time-efficient processes are first developed to manufacture µm thick large-scale stretchable devices. With micron thickness, the stretchable µm thick sEMG patches show excellent conformability with human skin and consequently comparable electrical performance with conventional gel electrodes. Combined with the large-scale size, the multichannel noninvasive HMI via stretchable µm thick sEMG patches successfully manipulates the robot hand with eight different gestures, whose precision is as high as conventional gel electrodes array.

Maneuvers during legged locomotion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jindrich, Devin L.; Qiao, Mu

2009-06-01

Maneuverability is essential for locomotion. For animals in the environment, maneuverability is directly related to survival. For humans, maneuvers such as turning are associated with increased risk for injury, either directly through tissue loading or indirectly through destabilization. Consequently, understanding the mechanics and motor control of maneuverability is a critical part of locomotion research. We briefly review the literature on maneuvering during locomotion with a focus on turning in bipeds. Walking turns can use one of several different strategies. Anticipation can be important to adjust kinematics and dynamics for smooth and stable maneuvers. During running, turns may be substantially constrained by the requirement for body orientation to match movement direction at the end of a turn. A simple mathematical model based on the requirement for rotation to match direction can describe leg forces used by bipeds (humans and ostriches). During running turns, both humans and ostriches control body rotation by generating fore-aft forces. However, whereas humans must generate large braking forces to prevent body over-rotation, ostriches do not. For ostriches, generating the lateral forces necessary to change movement direction results in appropriate body rotation. Although ostriches required smaller braking forces due in part to increased rotational inertia relative to body mass, other movement parameters also played a role. Turning performance resulted from the coordinated behavior of an integrated biomechanical system. Results from preliminary experiments on horizontal-plane stabilization support the hypothesis that controlling body rotation is an important aspect of stable maneuvers. In humans, body orientation relative to movement direction is rapidly stabilized during running turns within the minimum of two steps theoretically required to complete analogous maneuvers. During straight running and cutting turns, humans exhibit spring-mass behavior in the horizontal plane. Changes in the horizontal projection of leg length were linearly related to changes in horizontal-plane leg forces. Consequently, the passive dynamic stabilization associated with spring-mass behavior may contribute to stability during maneuvers in bipeds. Understanding the mechanics of maneuverability will be important for understanding the motor control of maneuvers and also potentially be useful for understanding stability.

Movement Contributes to Infants' Recognition of the Human Form

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Christie, Tamara; Slaughter, Virginia

2010-01-01

Three experiments demonstrate that biological movement facilitates young infants' recognition of the whole human form. A body discrimination task was used in which 6-, 9-, and 12-month-old infants were habituated to typical human bodies and then shown scrambled human bodies at the test. Recovery of interest to the scrambled bodies was observed in…

Optoelectronic Apparatus Measures Glucose Noninvasively

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ansari, Rafat R.; Rovati, Luigi L.

2003-01-01

An optoelectronic apparatus has been invented as a noninvasive means of measuring the concentration of glucose in the human body. The apparatus performs polarimetric and interferometric measurements of the human eye to acquire data from which the concentration of glucose in the aqueous humor can be computed. Because of the importance of the concentration of glucose in human health, there could be a large potential market for instruments based on this apparatus.

Statistical multi-path exposure method for assessing the whole-body SAR in a heterogeneous human body model in a realistic environment.

PubMed

Vermeeren, Günter; Joseph, Wout; Martens, Luc

2013-04-01

Assessing the whole-body absorption in a human in a realistic environment requires a statistical approach covering all possible exposure situations. This article describes the development of a statistical multi-path exposure method for heterogeneous realistic human body models. The method is applied for the 6-year-old Virtual Family boy (VFB) exposed to the GSM downlink at 950 MHz. It is shown that the whole-body SAR does not differ significantly over the different environments at an operating frequency of 950 MHz. Furthermore, the whole-body SAR in the VFB for multi-path exposure exceeds the whole-body SAR for worst-case single-incident plane wave exposure by 3.6%. Moreover, the ICNIRP reference levels are not conservative with the basic restrictions in 0.3% of the exposure samples for the VFB at the GSM downlink of 950 MHz. The homogeneous spheroid with the dielectric properties of the head suggested by the IEC underestimates the absorption compared to realistic human body models. Moreover, the variation in the whole-body SAR for realistic human body models is larger than for homogeneous spheroid models. This is mainly due to the heterogeneity of the tissues and the irregular shape of the realistic human body model compared to homogeneous spheroid human body models. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A triboelectric motion sensor in wearable body sensor network for human activity recognition.

PubMed

Hui Huang; Xian Li; Ye Sun

2016-08-01

The goal of this study is to design a novel triboelectric motion sensor in wearable body sensor network for human activity recognition. Physical activity recognition is widely used in well-being management, medical diagnosis and rehabilitation. Other than traditional accelerometers, we design a novel wearable sensor system based on triboelectrification. The triboelectric motion sensor can be easily attached to human body and collect motion signals caused by physical activities. The experiments are conducted to collect five common activity data: sitting and standing, walking, climbing upstairs, downstairs, and running. The k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN) clustering algorithm is adopted to recognize these activities and validate the feasibility of this new approach. The results show that our system can perform physical activity recognition with a successful rate over 80% for walking, sitting and standing. The triboelectric structure can also be used as an energy harvester for motion harvesting due to its high output voltage in random low-frequency motion.

Performances of the PIPER scalable child human body model in accident reconstruction

PubMed Central

Giordano, Chiara; Kleiven, Svein

2017-01-01

Human body models (HBMs) have the potential to provide significant insights into the pediatric response to impact. This study describes a scalable/posable approach to perform child accident reconstructions using the Position and Personalize Advanced Human Body Models for Injury Prediction (PIPER) scalable child HBM of different ages and in different positions obtained by the PIPER tool. Overall, the PIPER scalable child HBM managed reasonably well to predict the injury severity and location of the children involved in real-life crash scenarios documented in the medical records. The developed methodology and workflow is essential for future work to determine child injury tolerances based on the full Child Advanced Safety Project for European Roads (CASPER) accident reconstruction database. With the workflow presented in this study, the open-source PIPER scalable HBM combined with the PIPER tool is also foreseen to have implications for improved safety designs for a better protection of children in traffic accidents. PMID:29135997

Classifying a Person's Degree of Accessibility From Natural Body Language During Social Human-Robot Interactions.

PubMed

McColl, Derek; Jiang, Chuan; Nejat, Goldie

2017-02-01

For social robots to be successfully integrated and accepted within society, they need to be able to interpret human social cues that are displayed through natural modes of communication. In particular, a key challenge in the design of social robots is developing the robot's ability to recognize a person's affective states (emotions, moods, and attitudes) in order to respond appropriately during social human-robot interactions (HRIs). In this paper, we present and discuss social HRI experiments we have conducted to investigate the development of an accessibility-aware social robot able to autonomously determine a person's degree of accessibility (rapport, openness) toward the robot based on the person's natural static body language. In particular, we present two one-on-one HRI experiments to: 1) determine the performance of our automated system in being able to recognize and classify a person's accessibility levels and 2) investigate how people interact with an accessibility-aware robot which determines its own behaviors based on a person's speech and accessibility levels.

Human-Derived Disturbance Estimation and Compensation (DEC) Method Lends Itself to a Modular Sensorimotor Control in a Humanoid Robot.

PubMed

Lippi, Vittorio; Mergner, Thomas

2017-01-01

The high complexity of the human posture and movement control system represents challenges for diagnosis, therapy, and rehabilitation of neurological patients. We envisage that engineering-inspired, model-based approaches will help to deal with the high complexity of the human posture control system. Since the methods of system identification and parameter estimation are limited to systems with only a few DoF, our laboratory proposes a heuristic approach that step-by-step increases complexity when creating a hypothetical human-derived control systems in humanoid robots. This system is then compared with the human control in the same test bed, a posture control laboratory. The human-derived control builds upon the identified disturbance estimation and compensation (DEC) mechanism, whose main principle is to support execution of commanded poses or movements by compensating for external or self-produced disturbances such as gravity effects. In previous robotic implementation, up to 3 interconnected DEC control modules were used in modular control architectures separately for the sagittal plane or the frontal body plane and successfully passed balancing and movement tests. In this study we hypothesized that conflict-free movement coordination between the robot's sagittal and frontal body planes emerges simply from the physical embodiment, not necessarily requiring a full body control. Experiments were performed in the 14 DoF robot Lucy Posturob (i) demonstrating that the mechanical coupling from the robot's body suffices to coordinate the controls in the two planes when the robot produces movements and balancing responses in the intermediate plane, (ii) providing quantitative characterization of the interaction dynamics between body planes including frequency response functions (FRFs), as they are used in human postural control analysis, and (iii) witnessing postural and control stability when all DoFs are challenged together with the emergence of inter-segmental coordination in squatting movements. These findings represent an important step toward controlling in the robot in future more complex sensorimotor functions such as walking.

Human-Derived Disturbance Estimation and Compensation (DEC) Method Lends Itself to a Modular Sensorimotor Control in a Humanoid Robot

PubMed Central

Lippi, Vittorio; Mergner, Thomas

2017-01-01

The high complexity of the human posture and movement control system represents challenges for diagnosis, therapy, and rehabilitation of neurological patients. We envisage that engineering-inspired, model-based approaches will help to deal with the high complexity of the human posture control system. Since the methods of system identification and parameter estimation are limited to systems with only a few DoF, our laboratory proposes a heuristic approach that step-by-step increases complexity when creating a hypothetical human-derived control systems in humanoid robots. This system is then compared with the human control in the same test bed, a posture control laboratory. The human-derived control builds upon the identified disturbance estimation and compensation (DEC) mechanism, whose main principle is to support execution of commanded poses or movements by compensating for external or self-produced disturbances such as gravity effects. In previous robotic implementation, up to 3 interconnected DEC control modules were used in modular control architectures separately for the sagittal plane or the frontal body plane and successfully passed balancing and movement tests. In this study we hypothesized that conflict-free movement coordination between the robot's sagittal and frontal body planes emerges simply from the physical embodiment, not necessarily requiring a full body control. Experiments were performed in the 14 DoF robot Lucy Posturob (i) demonstrating that the mechanical coupling from the robot's body suffices to coordinate the controls in the two planes when the robot produces movements and balancing responses in the intermediate plane, (ii) providing quantitative characterization of the interaction dynamics between body planes including frequency response functions (FRFs), as they are used in human postural control analysis, and (iii) witnessing postural and control stability when all DoFs are challenged together with the emergence of inter-segmental coordination in squatting movements. These findings represent an important step toward controlling in the robot in future more complex sensorimotor functions such as walking. PMID:28951719

Exploring point-cloud features from partial body views for gender classification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fouts, Aaron; McCoppin, Ryan; Rizki, Mateen; Tamburino, Louis; Mendoza-Schrock, Olga

2012-06-01

In this paper we extend a previous exploration of histogram features extracted from 3D point cloud images of human subjects for gender discrimination. Feature extraction used a collection of concentric cylinders to define volumes for counting 3D points. The histogram features are characterized by a rotational axis and a selected set of volumes derived from the concentric cylinders. The point cloud images are drawn from the CAESAR anthropometric database provided by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Human Effectiveness Directorate and SAE International. This database contains approximately 4400 high resolution LIDAR whole body scans of carefully posed human subjects. Success from our previous investigation was based on extracting features from full body coverage which required integration of multiple camera images. With the full body coverage, the central vertical body axis and orientation are readily obtainable; however, this is not the case with a one camera view providing less than one half body coverage. Assuming that the subjects are upright, we need to determine or estimate the position of the vertical axis and the orientation of the body about this axis relative to the camera. In past experiments the vertical axis was located through the center of mass of torso points projected on the ground plane and the body orientation derived using principle component analysis. In a natural extension of our previous work to partial body views, the absence of rotational invariance about the cylindrical axis greatly increases the difficulty for gender classification. Even the problem of estimating the axis is no longer simple. We describe some simple feasibility experiments that use partial image histograms. Here, the cylindrical axis is assumed to be known. We also discuss experiments with full body images that explore the sensitivity of classification accuracy relative to displacements of the cylindrical axis. Our initial results provide the basis for further investigation of more complex partial body viewing problems and new methods for estimating the two position coordinates for the axis location and the unknown body orientation angle.

Contributions of visual and embodied expertise to body perception.

PubMed

Reed, Catherine L; Nyberg, Andrew A; Grubb, Jefferson D

2012-01-01

Recent research has demonstrated that our perception of the human body differs from that of inanimate objects. This study investigated whether the visual perception of the human body differs from that of other animate bodies and, if so, whether that difference could be attributed to visual experience and/or embodied experience. To dissociate differential effects of these two types of expertise, inversion effects (recognition of inverted stimuli is slower and less accurate than recognition of upright stimuli) were compared for two types of bodies in postures that varied in typicality: humans in human postures (human-typical), humans in dog postures (human-atypical), dogs in dog postures (dog-typical), and dogs in human postures (dog-atypical). Inversion disrupts global configural processing. Relative changes in the size and presence of inversion effects reflect changes in visual processing. Both visual and embodiment expertise predict larger inversion effects for human over dog postures because we see humans more and we have experience producing human postures. However, our design that crosses body type and typicality leads to distinct predictions for visual and embodied experience. Visual expertise predicts an interaction between typicality and orientation: greater inversion effects should be found for typical over atypical postures regardless of body type. Alternatively, embodiment expertise predicts a body, typicality, and orientation interaction: larger inversion effects should be found for all human postures but only for atypical dog postures because humans can map their bodily experience onto these postures. Accuracy data supported embodiment expertise with the three-way interaction. However, response-time data supported contributions of visual expertise with larger inversion effects for typical over atypical postures. Thus, both types of expertise affect the visual perception of bodies.

On parameters identification of computational models of vibrations during quiet standing of humans

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barauskas, R.; Krušinskienė, R.

2007-12-01

Vibration of the center of pressure (COP) of human body on the base of support during quiet standing is a very popular clinical research, which provides useful information about the physical and health condition of an individual. In this work, vibrations of COP of a human body in forward-backward direction during still standing are generated using controlled inverted pendulum (CIP) model with a single degree of freedom (dof) supplied with proportional, integral and differential (PID) controller, which represents the behavior of the central neural system of a human body and excited by cumulative disturbance vibration, generated within the body due to breathing or any other physical condition. The identification of the model and disturbance parameters is an important stage while creating a close-to-reality computational model able to evaluate features of disturbance. The aim of this study is to present the CIP model parameters identification approach based on the information captured by time series of the COP signal. The identification procedure is based on an error function minimization. Error function is formulated in terms of time laws of computed and experimentally measured COP vibrations. As an alternative, error function is formulated in terms of the stabilogram diffusion function (SDF). The minimization of error functions is carried out by employing methods based on sensitivity functions of the error with respect to model and excitation parameters. The sensitivity functions are obtained by using the variational techniques. The inverse dynamic problem approach has been employed in order to establish the properties of the disturbance time laws ensuring the satisfactory coincidence of measured and computed COP vibration laws. The main difficulty of the investigated problem is encountered during the model validation stage. Generally, neither the PID controller parameter set nor the disturbance time law are known in advance. In this work, an error function formulated in terms of time derivative of disturbance torque has been proposed in order to obtain PID controller parameters, as well as the reference time law of the disturbance. The disturbance torque is calculated from experimental data using the inverse dynamic approach. Experiments presented in this study revealed that vibrations of disturbance torque and PID controller parameters identified by the method may be qualified as feasible in humans. Presented approach may be easily extended to structural models with any number of dof or higher structural complexity.

The human body metabolism process mathematical simulation based on Lotka-Volterra model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oliynyk, Andriy; Oliynyk, Eugene; Pyptiuk, Olexandr; DzierŻak, RóŻa; Szatkowska, Małgorzata; Uvaysova, Svetlana; Kozbekova, Ainur

2017-08-01

The mathematical model of metabolism process in human organism based on Lotka-Volterra model has beeng proposed, considering healing regime, nutrition system, features of insulin and sugar fragmentation process in the organism. The numerical algorithm of the model using IV-order Runge-Kutta method has been realized. After the result of calculations the conclusions have been made, recommendations about using the modeling results have been showed, the vectors of the following researches are defined.

Accelerometer-based on-body sensor localization for health and medical monitoring applications

PubMed Central

Vahdatpour, Alireza; Amini, Navid; Xu, Wenyao; Sarrafzadeh, Majid

2011-01-01

In this paper, we present a technique to recognize the position of sensors on the human body. Automatic on-body device localization ensures correctness and accuracy of measurements in health and medical monitoring systems. In addition, it provides opportunities to improve the performance and usability of ubiquitous devices. Our technique uses accelerometers to capture motion data to estimate the location of the device on the user’s body, using mixed supervised and unsupervised time series analysis methods. We have evaluated our technique with extensive experiments on 25 subjects. On average, our technique achieves 89% accuracy in estimating the location of devices on the body. In order to study the feasibility of classification of left limbs from right limbs (e.g., left arm vs. right arm), we performed analysis, based of which no meaningful classification was observed. Personalized ultraviolet monitoring and wireless transmission power control comprise two immediate applications of our on-body device localization approach. Such applications, along with their corresponding feasibility studies, are discussed. PMID:22347840

[A new information technology for system diagnosis of functional activity of human organs].

PubMed

Avshalumov, A Sh; Sudakov, K V; Filaretov, G F

2006-01-01

The goal of this work was to consider a new diagnostic technology based on analysis of objective information parameters of functional activity and interaction of normal and pathologically changed human organs. The technology is based on the use of very low power millimeter (EHF) radiation emitted by human body and other biological objects in the process of vital activity. The importance of consideration of the information aspect of vital activity from the standpoint of the theory of functional systems suggested by P. K. Anokhin is emphasized. The suggested information technology is theoretically substantiated. The capabilities of the suggested technology for diagnosis, as well as the difficulties of its practical implementation caused by very low power of electromagnetic fields generated by human body, are discussed. It is noted that only use of modern radiophysical equipment together with new software based on specially developed algorithms made it possible to construct a medical EHF diagnostic system for effective implementation of the suggested technology. The system structure, functions of its components, the examination procedure, and the form of representation of diagnostic information are described together with the specific features of applied software based on the principle of maximal objectivity of analysis and interpretation of the results of diagnosis on the basis of artificial intelligence algorithms. The diagnostic capabilities of the system are illustrated by several examples.

First Insights into the Diverse Human Archaeome: Specific Detection of Archaea in the Gastrointestinal Tract, Lung, and Nose and on Skin

PubMed Central

Koskinen, Kaisa; Pausan, Manuela R.; Perras, Alexandra K.; Beck, Michael; Bang, Corinna; Mora, Maximilian; Schilhabel, Anke; Schmitz, Ruth

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT Human-associated archaea remain understudied in the field of microbiome research, although in particular methanogenic archaea were found to be regular commensals of the human gut, where they represent keystone species in metabolic processes. Knowledge on the abundance and diversity of human-associated archaea is extremely limited, and little is known about their function(s), their overall role in human health, or their association with parts of the human body other than the gastrointestinal tract and oral cavity. Currently, methodological issues impede the full assessment of the human archaeome, as bacteria-targeting protocols are unsuitable for characterization of the full spectrum of Archaea. The goal of this study was to establish conservative protocols based on specifically archaea-targeting, PCR-based methods to retrieve first insights into the archaeomes of the human gastrointestinal tract, lung, nose, and skin. Detection of Archaea was highly dependent on primer selection and the sequence processing pipeline used. Our results enabled us to retrieve a novel picture of the human archaeome, as we found for the first time Methanobacterium and Woesearchaeota (DPANN superphylum) to be associated with the human gastrointestinal tract and the human lung, respectively. Similar to bacteria, human-associated archaeal communities were found to group biogeographically, forming (i) the thaumarchaeal skin landscape, (ii) the (methano)euryarchaeal gastrointestinal tract, (iii) a mixed skin-gastrointestinal tract landscape for the nose, and (iv) a woesearchaeal lung landscape. On the basis of the protocols we used, we were able to detect unexpectedly high diversity of archaea associated with different body parts. PMID:29138298

[Research progress on free radicals in human body].

PubMed

Wang, Q B; Xu, F P; Wei, C X; Peng, J; Dong, X D

2016-08-10

Free radicals are the intermediates of metabolism, widely exist in the human bodies. Under normal circumstances, the free radicals play an important role in the metabolic process on human body, cell signal pathway, gene regulation, induction of cell proliferation and apoptosis, so as to maintain the normal growth and development of human body and to inhibit the growth of bacteria, virus and cancer. However, when organic lesion occurs affected by external factors or when equilibrium of the free radicals is tipped in the human body, the free radicals will respond integratedly with lipids, protein or nucleic acid which may jeopardize the health of human bodies. This paper summarizes the research progress of the free radicals conducted in recent years, in relations to the perspective of the types, origins, test methods of the free radicals and their relationship with human's health. In addition, the possible mechanisms of environmental pollutants (such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) mediating oxidative stress and free radicals scavenging in the body were also summarized.

Integration of phase separation with ultrasound-assisted salt-induced liquid-liquid microextraction for analyzing the fluoroquinones in human body fluids by liquid chromatography.

PubMed

Wang, Huili; Gao, Ming; Wang, Mei; Zhang, Rongbo; Wang, Wenwei; Dahlgren, Randy A; Wang, Xuedong

2015-03-15

Herein, we developed a novel integrated device to perform phase separation based on ultrasound-assisted salt-induced liquid-liquid microextraction for determination of five fluoroquinones (FQs) in human body fluids. The integrated device consisted of three simple HDPE components used to separate the extraction solvent from the aqueous phase prior to retrieving the extractant. A series of extraction parameters were optimized using the response surface method based on central composite design. Optimal conditions consisted of 945μL acetone extraction solvent, pH 2.1, 4.1min stir time, 5.9g Na2SO4, and 4.0min centrifugation. Under optimized conditions, the limits of detection (at S/N=3) were 0.12-0.66μgL(-1), the linear range was 0.5-500μgL(-1) and recoveries were 92.6-110.9% for the five FQs extracted from plasma and urine. The proposed method has several advantages, such as easy construction from inexpensive materials, high extraction efficiency, short extraction time, and compatibility with HPLC analysis. Thus, this method shows excellent prospects for sample pretreatment and analysis of FQs in human body fluids. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Penis size interacts with body shape and height to influence male attractiveness.

PubMed

Mautz, Brian S; Wong, Bob B M; Peters, Richard A; Jennions, Michael D

2013-04-23

Compelling evidence from many animal taxa indicates that male genitalia are often under postcopulatory sexual selection for characteristics that increase a male's relative fertilization success. There could, however, also be direct precopulatory female mate choice based on male genital traits. Before clothing, the nonretractable human penis would have been conspicuous to potential mates. This observation has generated suggestions that human penis size partly evolved because of female choice. Here we show, based upon female assessment of digitally projected life-size, computer-generated images, that penis size interacts with body shape and height to determine male sexual attractiveness. Positive linear selection was detected for penis size, but the marginal increase in attractiveness eventually declined with greater penis size (i.e., quadratic selection). Penis size had a stronger effect on attractiveness in taller men than in shorter men. There was a similar increase in the positive effect of penis size on attractiveness with a more masculine body shape (i.e., greater shoulder-to-hip ratio). Surprisingly, larger penis size and greater height had almost equivalent positive effects on male attractiveness. Our results support the hypothesis that female mate choice could have driven the evolution of larger penises in humans. More broadly, our results show that precopulatory sexual selection can play a role in the evolution of genital traits.

Recent Progress of Textile-Based Wearable Electronics: A Comprehensive Review of Materials, Devices, and Applications.

PubMed

Heo, Jae Sang; Eom, Jimi; Kim, Yong-Hoon; Park, Sung Kyu

2018-01-01

Wearable electronics are emerging as a platform for next-generation, human-friendly, electronic devices. A new class of devices with various functionality and amenability for the human body is essential. These new conceptual devices are likely to be a set of various functional devices such as displays, sensors, batteries, etc., which have quite different working conditions, on or in the human body. In these aspects, electronic textiles seem to be a highly suitable possibility, due to the unique characteristics of textiles such as being light weight and flexible and their inherent warmth and the property to conform. Therefore, e-textiles have evolved into fiber-based electronic apparel or body attachable types in order to foster significant industrialization of the key components with adaptable formats. Although the advances are noteworthy, their electrical performance and device features are still unsatisfactory for consumer level e-textile systems. To solve these issues, innovative structural and material designs, and novel processing technologies have been introduced into e-textile systems. Recently reported and significantly developed functional materials and devices are summarized, including their enhanced optoelectrical and mechanical properties. Furthermore, the remaining challenges are discussed, and effective strategies to facilitate the full realization of e-textile systems are suggested. © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Penis size interacts with body shape and height to influence male attractiveness

PubMed Central

Mautz, Brian S.; Wong, Bob B. M.; Peters, Richard A.; Jennions, Michael D.

2013-01-01

Compelling evidence from many animal taxa indicates that male genitalia are often under postcopulatory sexual selection for characteristics that increase a male’s relative fertilization success. There could, however, also be direct precopulatory female mate choice based on male genital traits. Before clothing, the nonretractable human penis would have been conspicuous to potential mates. This observation has generated suggestions that human penis size partly evolved because of female choice. Here we show, based upon female assessment of digitally projected life-size, computer-generated images, that penis size interacts with body shape and height to determine male sexual attractiveness. Positive linear selection was detected for penis size, but the marginal increase in attractiveness eventually declined with greater penis size (i.e., quadratic selection). Penis size had a stronger effect on attractiveness in taller men than in shorter men. There was a similar increase in the positive effect of penis size on attractiveness with a more masculine body shape (i.e., greater shoulder-to-hip ratio). Surprisingly, larger penis size and greater height had almost equivalent positive effects on male attractiveness. Our results support the hypothesis that female mate choice could have driven the evolution of larger penises in humans. More broadly, our results show that precopulatory sexual selection can play a role in the evolution of genital traits. PMID:23569234

Evidence for an African cluster of human head and body lice with variable colors and interbreeding of lice between continents.

PubMed

Veracx, Aurélie; Boutellis, Amina; Merhej, Vicky; Diatta, Georges; Raoult, Didier

2012-01-01

Human head lice and body lice have been classified based on phenotypic characteristics, including geographical source, ecotype (preferred egg laying site hair or clothes), shape and color. More recently, genotypic studies have been based on mitochondrial genes, nuclear genes and intergenic spacers. Mitochondrial genetic analysis reclassified lice into three genotypes (A, B and C). However, no previous study has attempted to correlate both genotypic and phenotypic data. Lice were collected in four African countries: Senegal, Burundi, Rwanda and Ethiopia and were photographed to compare their colors. The Multi-Spacer-Typing (MST) method was used to genotype lice belonging to the worldwide Clade A, allowing a comparison of phenotypic and genotypic data. No congruence between louse color and genotype has been identified. Phylogenetic analysis of the spacer PM2, performed including lice from other sources, showed the existence of an African cluster of human lice. However, the analysis of other spacers suggested that lice from different areas are interbreeding. We identified two geotypes of Clade A head and body lice including one that is specifically African, that can be either black or grey and can live on the head or in clothing. We also hypothesized that lice from different areas are interbreeding.

A novel image-based BRDF measurement system and its application to human skin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bintz, Jeffrey R.; Mendenhall, Michael J.; Marciniak, Michael A.; Butler, Samuel D.; Lloyd, James Tommy

2016-09-01

Human skin detection is an important first step in search and rescue (SAR) scenarios. Previous research performed human skin detection through an application specific camera system that ex- ploits the spectral properties of human skin at two visible and two near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths. The current theory assumes human skin is diffuse; however, it is observed that human skin exhibits specular and diffuse reflectance properties. This paper presents a novel image-based bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) measurement system, and applies it to the collection of human skin BRDF. The system uses a grid projecting laser and a novel signal processing chain to extract the surface normal from each grid location. Human skin BRDF measurements are shown for a variety of melanin content and hair coverage at the four spectral channels needed for human skin detection. The NIR results represent a novel contribution to the existing body of human skin BRDF measurements.

Training Classifiers with Shadow Features for Sensor-Based Human Activity Recognition.

PubMed

Fong, Simon; Song, Wei; Cho, Kyungeun; Wong, Raymond; Wong, Kelvin K L

2017-02-27

In this paper, a novel training/testing process for building/using a classification model based on human activity recognition (HAR) is proposed. Traditionally, HAR has been accomplished by a classifier that learns the activities of a person by training with skeletal data obtained from a motion sensor, such as Microsoft Kinect. These skeletal data are the spatial coordinates (x, y, z) of different parts of the human body. The numeric information forms time series, temporal records of movement sequences that can be used for training a classifier. In addition to the spatial features that describe current positions in the skeletal data, new features called 'shadow features' are used to improve the supervised learning efficacy of the classifier. Shadow features are inferred from the dynamics of body movements, and thereby modelling the underlying momentum of the performed activities. They provide extra dimensions of information for characterising activities in the classification process, and thereby significantly improve the classification accuracy. Two cases of HAR are tested using a classification model trained with shadow features: one is by using wearable sensor and the other is by a Kinect-based remote sensor. Our experiments can demonstrate the advantages of the new method, which will have an impact on human activity detection research.

Training Classifiers with Shadow Features for Sensor-Based Human Activity Recognition

PubMed Central

Fong, Simon; Song, Wei; Cho, Kyungeun; Wong, Raymond; Wong, Kelvin K. L.

2017-01-01

In this paper, a novel training/testing process for building/using a classification model based on human activity recognition (HAR) is proposed. Traditionally, HAR has been accomplished by a classifier that learns the activities of a person by training with skeletal data obtained from a motion sensor, such as Microsoft Kinect. These skeletal data are the spatial coordinates (x, y, z) of different parts of the human body. The numeric information forms time series, temporal records of movement sequences that can be used for training a classifier. In addition to the spatial features that describe current positions in the skeletal data, new features called ‘shadow features’ are used to improve the supervised learning efficacy of the classifier. Shadow features are inferred from the dynamics of body movements, and thereby modelling the underlying momentum of the performed activities. They provide extra dimensions of information for characterising activities in the classification process, and thereby significantly improve the classification accuracy. Two cases of HAR are tested using a classification model trained with shadow features: one is by using wearable sensor and the other is by a Kinect-based remote sensor. Our experiments can demonstrate the advantages of the new method, which will have an impact on human activity detection research. PMID:28264470

Kinematic Model-Based Pedestrian Dead Reckoning for Heading Correction and Lower Body Motion Tracking.

PubMed

Lee, Min Su; Ju, Hojin; Song, Jin Woo; Park, Chan Gook

2015-11-06

In this paper, we present a method for finding the enhanced heading and position of pedestrians by fusing the Zero velocity UPdaTe (ZUPT)-based pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) and the kinematic constraints of the lower human body. ZUPT is a well known algorithm for PDR, and provides a sufficiently accurate position solution for short term periods, but it cannot guarantee a stable and reliable heading because it suffers from magnetic disturbance in determining heading angles, which degrades the overall position accuracy as time passes. The basic idea of the proposed algorithm is integrating the left and right foot positions obtained by ZUPTs with the heading and position information from an IMU mounted on the waist. To integrate this information, a kinematic model of the lower human body, which is calculated by using orientation sensors mounted on both thighs and calves, is adopted. We note that the position of the left and right feet cannot be apart because of the kinematic constraints of the body, so the kinematic model generates new measurements for the waist position. The Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) on the waist data that estimates and corrects error states uses these measurements and magnetic heading measurements, which enhances the heading accuracy. The updated position information is fed into the foot mounted sensors, and reupdate processes are performed to correct the position error of each foot. The proposed update-reupdate technique consequently ensures improved observability of error states and position accuracy. Moreover, the proposed method provides all the information about the lower human body, so that it can be applied more effectively to motion tracking. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified via experimental results, which show that a 1.25% Return Position Error (RPE) with respect to walking distance is achieved.

Breath Activity Monitoring With Wearable UWB Radars: Measurement and Analysis of the Pulses Reflected by the Human Body.

PubMed

Pittella, Erika; Pisa, Stefano; Cavagnaro, Marta

2016-07-01

Measurements of ultrawideband (UWB) pulses reflected by the human body are conducted to evidence the differences in the received signal time behaviors due to respiration phases, and to experimentally verify previously obtained numerical results on the body's organs responsible for pulse reflection. Two experimental setups are used. The first one is based on a commercially available impulse radar system integrated on a single chip, while the second one implements an indirect time-domain reflectometry technique using a vector network analyzer controlled by a LabVIEW virtual instrument running on a laptop. When the UWB source is placed close to the human body, a small reflection due to the lung boundaries is present in the received pulse well distanced in time from the reflection due to the air-skin interface; this reflection proved to be linked to the different respiration phases. The changes in the reflected pulse could be used to detect, through wearable radar systems, lung movements associated with the breath activity. The development of a wearable radar system is of great importance because it allows the breath activity sensing without interfering with the subject daily activities.

Human growth and body weight dynamics: an integrative systems model.

PubMed

Rahmandad, Hazhir

2014-01-01

Quantifying human weight and height dynamics due to growth, aging, and energy balance can inform clinical practice and policy analysis. This paper presents the first mechanism-based model spanning full individual life and capturing changes in body weight, composition and height. Integrating previous empirical and modeling findings and validated against several additional empirical studies, the model replicates key trends in human growth including A) Changes in energy requirements from birth to old ages. B) Short and long-term dynamics of body weight and composition. C) Stunted growth with chronic malnutrition and potential for catch up growth. From obesity policy analysis to treating malnutrition and tracking growth trajectories, the model can address diverse policy questions. For example I find that even without further rise in obesity, the gap between healthy and actual Body Mass Indexes (BMIs) has embedded, for different population groups, a surplus of 14%-24% in energy intake which will be a source of significant inertia in obesity trends. In another analysis, energy deficit percentage needed to reduce BMI by one unit is found to be relatively constant across ages. Accompanying documented and freely available simulation model facilitates diverse applications customized to different sub-populations.

Human Growth and Body Weight Dynamics: An Integrative Systems Model

PubMed Central

Rahmandad, Hazhir

2014-01-01

Quantifying human weight and height dynamics due to growth, aging, and energy balance can inform clinical practice and policy analysis. This paper presents the first mechanism-based model spanning full individual life and capturing changes in body weight, composition and height. Integrating previous empirical and modeling findings and validated against several additional empirical studies, the model replicates key trends in human growth including A) Changes in energy requirements from birth to old ages. B) Short and long-term dynamics of body weight and composition. C) Stunted growth with chronic malnutrition and potential for catch up growth. From obesity policy analysis to treating malnutrition and tracking growth trajectories, the model can address diverse policy questions. For example I find that even without further rise in obesity, the gap between healthy and actual Body Mass Indexes (BMIs) has embedded, for different population groups, a surplus of 14%–24% in energy intake which will be a source of significant inertia in obesity trends. In another analysis, energy deficit percentage needed to reduce BMI by one unit is found to be relatively constant across ages. Accompanying documented and freely available simulation model facilitates diverse applications customized to different sub-populations. PMID:25479101

Theoretical modeling of time-dependent skin temperature and heat losses during whole-body cryotherapy: A pilot study.

PubMed

Polidori, G; Marreiro, A; Pron, H; Lestriez, P; Boyer, F C; Quinart, H; Tourbah, A; Taïar, R

2016-11-01

This article establishes the basics of a theoretical model for the constitutive law that describes the skin temperature and thermolysis heat losses undergone by a subject during a session of whole-body cryotherapy (WBC). This study focuses on the few minutes during which the human body is subjected to a thermal shock. The relationship between skin temperature and thermolysis heat losses during this period is still unknown and have not yet been studied in the context of the whole human body. The analytical approach here is based on the hypothesis that the skin thermal shock during a WBC session can be thermally modelled by the sum of both radiative and free convective heat transfer functions. The validation of this scientific approach and the derivation of temporal evolution thermal laws, both on skin temperature and dissipated thermal power during the thermal shock open many avenues of large scale studies with the aim of proposing individualized cryotherapy protocols as well as protocols intended for target populations. Furthermore, this study shows quantitatively the substantial imbalance between human metabolism and thermolysis during WBC, the explanation of which remains an open question. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Unobstructive Body Area Networks (BAN) for efficient movement monitoring.

PubMed

Felisberto, Filipe; Costa, Nuno; Fdez-Riverola, Florentino; Pereira, António

2012-01-01

The technological advances in medical sensors, low-power microelectronics and miniaturization, wireless communications and networks have enabled the appearance of a new generation of wireless sensor networks: the so-called wireless body area networks (WBAN). These networks can be used for continuous monitoring of vital parameters, movement, and the surrounding environment. The data gathered by these networks contributes to improve users' quality of life and allows the creation of a knowledge database by using learning techniques, useful to infer abnormal behaviour. In this paper we present a wireless body area network architecture to recognize human movement, identify human postures and detect harmful activities in order to prevent risk situations. The WBAN was created using tiny, cheap and low-power nodes with inertial and physiological sensors, strategically placed on the human body. Doing so, in an as ubiquitous as possible way, ensures that its impact on the users' daily actions is minimum. The information collected by these sensors is transmitted to a central server capable of analysing and processing their data. The proposed system creates movement profiles based on the data sent by the WBAN's nodes, and is able to detect in real time any abnormal movement and allows for a monitored rehabilitation of the user.

Microwave non-contact imaging of subcutaneous human body tissues.

PubMed

Kletsov, Andrey; Chernokalov, Alexander; Khripkov, Alexander; Cho, Jaegeol; Druchinin, Sergey

2015-10-01

A small-size microwave sensor is developed for non-contact imaging of a human body structure in 2D, enabling fitness and health monitoring using mobile devices. A method for human body tissue structure imaging is developed and experimentally validated. Subcutaneous fat tissue reconstruction depth of up to 70 mm and maximum fat thickness measurement error below 2 mm are demonstrated by measurements with a human body phantom and human subjects. Electrically small antennas are developed for integration of the microwave sensor into a mobile device. Usability of the developed microwave sensor for fitness applications, healthcare, and body weight management is demonstrated.

Cell Phones: Current Research Results

MedlinePlus

... possibly carcinogenic to humans": Coffee Extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields (power line frequency) Talc-based body powder ... Effects of Wireless Communication Devices World Health Organization: Electromagnetic Fields and Public Health: Mobile Phones International Agency ...

In-to-out body path loss for wireless radio frequency capsule endoscopy in a human body.

PubMed

Vermeeren, G; Tanghe, E; Thielens, A; Martens, L; Joseph, W

2016-08-01

Physical-layer characterization is important for design of in-to-out body communication for wireless body area networks (WBANs). This paper numerically investigates the path loss of an in-to-out body radio frequency (RF) wireless link between an endoscopy capsule and a receiver outside the body using a 3D electromagnetic solver. A spiral antenna in the endoscopy capsule is tuned to operate in the Medical Implant Communication Service (MICS) band at 402 MHz, accounting for the properties of the human body. The influence of misalignment, rotation of the capsule, and human body model are investigated. Semi-empirical path loss models for various homogeneous tissues and 3D realistic human body models are provided for manufacturers to evaluate the performance of in-to-out-body WBAN systems.

3D body scanning technology for fashion and apparel industry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

D'Apuzzo, Nicola

2007-01-01

This paper presents an overview of 3D body scanning technologies with applications to the fashion and apparel industry. Complete systems for the digitization of the human body exist since more than fifteen years. One of the main users of this technology with application in the textile field was the military industry. In fact, body scanning technology is being successfully employed since many years in military bases for a fast selection of the correct size of uniforms for the entire staff. Complete solutions were especially developed for this field of application. Many different research projects were issued for the exploitation of the same technology in the commercial field. Experiments were performed and start-up projects are to time running in different parts of the world by installing full body scanning systems in various locations such as shopping malls, boutiques or dedicated scanning centers. Everything is actually ready to be exploited and all the required hardware, software and solutions are available: full body scanning systems, software for the automatic and reliable extraction of body measurements, e-kiosk and web solutions for the presentation of garments, high-end and low-end virtual-try-on systems. However, complete solutions in this area have still not yet found the expected commercial success. Today, with the on-going large cost reduction given by the appearance of new competitors, methods for digitization of the human body becomes more interesting for the fashion and apparel industry. Therefore, a large expansion of these technologies is expected in the near future. To date, different methods are used commercially for the measurement of the human body. These can be divided into three major distinguished groups: laser-scanning, projection of light patterns, combination modeling and image processing. The different solutions have strengths and weaknesses that profile their suitability for specific applications. This paper gives an overview of their differences and characteristics and expresses clues for the selection of the adequate method. A special interest is given to practical examples of the commercial exploitation of human body digitization with applications to the fashion and apparel industry.

Motion analysis report

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Badler, N. I.

1985-01-01

Human motion analysis is the task of converting actual human movements into computer readable data. Such movement information may be obtained though active or passive sensing methods. Active methods include physical measuring devices such as goniometers on joints of the body, force plates, and manually operated sensors such as a Cybex dynamometer. Passive sensing de-couples the position measuring device from actual human contact. Passive sensors include Selspot scanning systems (since there is no mechanical connection between the subject's attached LEDs and the infrared sensing cameras), sonic (spark-based) three-dimensional digitizers, Polhemus six-dimensional tracking systems, and image processing systems based on multiple views and photogrammetric calculations.

On optics of human meridians

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Hongqin; Xie, Shusen; Li, Hui; Wang, Yuhua

2009-04-01

A new concept and its methodology for studying human meridians are presented based on rigorous and scientific observation on the objective existence of human meridians in view of biomedical optics. According to this methodology, the infrared radiant characteristics of acupuncture meridians over human body and the optical transport properties of light propagating along the meridian are reported. This study, thus, confirms the existence of acupuncture meridians, sheds new light on an approach to investigation of human meridians and offers a new perspective in understanding the potential meridian functions such as energy and information transfer and physiological regulation.

Frequency response function-based explicit framework for dynamic identification in human-structure systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wei, Xiaojun; Živanović, Stana

2018-05-01

The aim of this paper is to propose a novel theoretical framework for dynamic identification in a structure occupied by a single human. The framework enables the prediction of the dynamics of the human-structure system from the known properties of the individual system components, the identification of human body dynamics from the known dynamics of the empty structure and the human-structure system and the identification of the properties of the structure from the known dynamics of the human and the human-structure system. The novelty of the proposed framework is the provision of closed-form solutions in terms of frequency response functions obtained by curve fitting measured data. The advantages of the framework over existing methods are that there is neither need for nonlinear optimisation nor need for spatial/modal models of the empty structure and the human-structure system. In addition, the second-order perturbation method is employed to quantify the effect of uncertainties in human body dynamics on the dynamic identification of the empty structure and the human-structure system. The explicit formulation makes the method computationally efficient and straightforward to use. A series of numerical examples and experiments are provided to illustrate the working of the method.

Neural correlates of human body perception.

PubMed

Aleong, Rosanne; Paus, Tomás

2010-03-01

The objective of this study was to investigate potential sex differences in the neural response to human bodies using fMRI carried out in healthy young adults. We presented human bodies in a block-design experiment to identify body-responsive regions of the brain, namely, extrastriate body area (EBA) and fusiform body area (FBA). In a separate event-related "adaptation" experiment, carried out in the same group of subjects, we presented sets of four human bodies of varying body size and shape. Varying levels of body morphing were introduced to assess the degree of morphing required for adaptation release. Analysis of BOLD signal in the block-design experiment revealed significant Sex x Hemisphere interactions in the EBA and the FBA responses to human bodies. Only women showed greater BOLD response to bodies in the right hemisphere compared with the left hemisphere for both EBA and FBA. The BOLD response in right EBA was higher in women compared with men. In the adaptation experiment, greater right versus left hemisphere response for EBA and FBA was also identified among women but not men. These findings are particularly novel in that they address potential sex differences in the lateralization of EBA and FBA responses to human body images. Although previous studies have found some degree of right hemisphere dominance in body perception, our results suggest that such a functional lateralization may differ between men and women.

Stability, precision, and near-24-hour period of the human circadian pacemaker

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Czeisler, C. A.; Duffy, J. F.; Shanahan, T. L.; Brown, E. N.; Mitchell, J. F.; Rimmer, D. W.; Ronda, J. M.; Silva, E. J.; Allan, J. S.; Emens, J. S.;

A marker-free system for the analysis of movement disabilities.

PubMed

Legrand, L; Marzani, F; Dusserre, L

1998-01-01

A major step toward improving the treatments of disabled persons may be achieved by using motion analysis equipment. We are developing such a system. It allows the analysis of plane human motion (e.g. gait) without using the tracking of markers. The system is composed of one fixed camera which acquires an image sequence of a human in motion. Then the treatment is divided into two steps: first, a large number of pixels belonging to the boundaries of the human body are extracted at each acquisition time. Secondly, a two-dimensional model of the human body, based on tapered superquadrics, is successively matched with the sets of pixels previously extracted; a specific fuzzy clustering process is used for this purpose. Moreover, an optical flow procedure gives a prediction of the model location at each acquisition time from its location at the previous time. Finally we present some results of this process applied to a leg in motion.

Application-oriented programming model for sensor networks embedded in the human body.

PubMed

Barbosa, Talles M G de A; Sene, Iwens G; da Rocha, Adson F; Nascimento, Fransisco A de O; Carvalho, Hervaldo S; Camapum, Juliana F

2006-01-01

This work presents a new programming model for sensor networks embedded in the human body which is based on the concept of multi-programming application-oriented software. This model was conceived with a top-down approach of four layers and its main goal is to allow the healthcare professionals to program and to reconfigure the network locally or by the Internet. In order to evaluate this hypothesis, a benchmarking was executed in order to allow the assessment of the mean time spent in the programming of a multi-functional sensor node used for the measurement and transmission of the electrocardiogram.

Drug Retention Times

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Center for Human Reliability Studies

The purpose of this monograph is to provide information on drug retention times in the human body. The information provided is based on plausible illegal drug use activities that might be engaged in by a recreational drug user.

Cloth-Based Power Shirt for Wearable Energy Harvesting and Clothes Ornamentation.

PubMed

Li, Suling; Zhong, Qize; Zhong, Junwen; Cheng, Xiaofeng; Wang, Bo; Hu, Bin; Zhou, Jun

2015-07-15

Harvesting ambient mechanical energy from human body motion has attracted great research interest. In this work, a power shirt based on triboelectrification and the electrostatic induction effect between fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) and external objects is demonstrated. This power shirt can effectively convert the ambient mechanical energy into electric power, and the working mechanism is systematically discussed. A maximum short-circuit current density of ∼0.37 μA/cm2 and a maximum peak power density of ∼4.65 μW/cm2 were achieved. Simultaneously, 11 blue LEDs were lit by sliding the sleeve and power shirt, indicating the potential application of the power shirt in clothes ornamentation and risk warning. This study develops an efficient path for harvesting human body energy and promoting the development of wearable electronics and smart garments.

HealthCyberMap: a semantic visual browser of medical Internet resources based on clinical codes and the human body metaphor.

PubMed

Kamel Boulos, Maged N; Roudsari, Abdul V; Carso N, Ewart R

2002-12-01

HealthCyberMap (HCM-http://healthcybermap.semanticweb.org) is a web-based service for healthcare professionals and librarians, patients and the public in general that aims at mapping parts of the health information resources in cyberspace in novel ways to improve their retrieval and navigation. HCM adopts a clinical metadata framework built upon a clinical coding ontology for the semantic indexing, classification and browsing of Internet health information resources. A resource metadata base holds information about selected resources. HCM then uses GIS (Geographic Information Systems) spatialization methods to generate interactive navigational cybermaps from the metadata base. These visual cybermaps are based on familiar medical metaphors. HCM cybermaps can be considered as semantically spatialized, ontology-based browsing views of the underlying resource metadata base. Using a clinical coding scheme as a metric for spatialization ('semantic distance') is unique to HCM and is very much suited for the semantic categorization and navigation of Internet health information resources. Clinical codes ensure reliable and unambiguous topical indexing of these resources. HCM also introduces a useful form of cyberspatial analysis for the detection of topical coverage gaps in the resource metadata base using choropleth (shaded) maps of human body systems.

Modelling the time-variant dietary exposure of PCBs in China over the period 1930 to 2100.

PubMed

Zhao, Shizhen; Breivik, Knut; Jones, Kevin C; Sweetman, Andrew J

2018-06-06

This study aimed for the first time to reconstruct historical exposure profiles for PCBs to the Chinese population, by examining the combined effect of changing temporal emissions and dietary transition. A long-term (1930-2100) dynamic simulation of human exposure using realistic emission scenarios, including primary emissions, unintentional emissions and emissions from e-waste, combined with dietary transition trends was conducted by a multimedia fate model (BETR-Global) linked to a bioaccumulation model (ACC-HUMAN). The model predicted an approximate 30-year delay of peak body burden for PCB-153 in a 30-year-old Chinese female, compared to their European counterpart. This was mainly attributed to a combination of change in diet and divergent emission patterns in China. A fish-based diet was predicted to result in up to 8 times higher body burden than a vegetable-based diet (2010-2100). During the production period, a worst-case scenario assuming only consumption of imported food from a region with more extensive production and usage of PCBs would result in up to 4 times higher body burden compared to consumption of only locally produced food. However, such differences gradually diminished after cessation of production. Therefore, emission reductions in China alone may not be sufficient to protect human health for PCB-like chemicals, particularly during the period of mass production. The results from this study illustrate that human exposure is also likely to be dictated by inflows of PCBs via the environment, waste and food.

An IMU-Aided Body-Shadowing Error Compensation Method for Indoor Bluetooth Positioning

PubMed Central

Deng, Zhongliang

2018-01-01

Research on indoor positioning technologies has recently become a hotspot because of the huge social and economic potential of indoor location-based services (ILBS). Wireless positioning signals have a considerable attenuation in received signal strength (RSS) when transmitting through human bodies, which would cause significant ranging and positioning errors in RSS-based systems. This paper mainly focuses on the body-shadowing impairment of RSS-based ranging and positioning, and derives a mathematical expression of the relation between the body-shadowing effect and the positioning error. In addition, an inertial measurement unit-aided (IMU-aided) body-shadowing detection strategy is designed, and an error compensation model is established to mitigate the effect of body-shadowing. A Bluetooth positioning algorithm with body-shadowing error compensation (BP-BEC) is then proposed to improve both the positioning accuracy and the robustness in indoor body-shadowing environments. Experiments are conducted in two indoor test beds, and the performance of both the BP-BEC algorithm and the algorithms without body-shadowing error compensation (named no-BEC) is evaluated. The results show that the BP-BEC outperforms the no-BEC by about 60.1% and 73.6% in terms of positioning accuracy and robustness, respectively. Moreover, the execution time of the BP-BEC algorithm is also evaluated, and results show that the convergence speed of the proposed algorithm has an insignificant effect on real-time localization. PMID:29361718

An IMU-Aided Body-Shadowing Error Compensation Method for Indoor Bluetooth Positioning.

PubMed

Deng, Zhongliang; Fu, Xiao; Wang, Hanhua

2018-01-20

Research on indoor positioning technologies has recently become a hotspot because of the huge social and economic potential of indoor location-based services (ILBS). Wireless positioning signals have a considerable attenuation in received signal strength (RSS) when transmitting through human bodies, which would cause significant ranging and positioning errors in RSS-based systems. This paper mainly focuses on the body-shadowing impairment of RSS-based ranging and positioning, and derives a mathematical expression of the relation between the body-shadowing effect and the positioning error. In addition, an inertial measurement unit-aided (IMU-aided) body-shadowing detection strategy is designed, and an error compensation model is established to mitigate the effect of body-shadowing. A Bluetooth positioning algorithm with body-shadowing error compensation (BP-BEC) is then proposed to improve both the positioning accuracy and the robustness in indoor body-shadowing environments. Experiments are conducted in two indoor test beds, and the performance of both the BP-BEC algorithm and the algorithms without body-shadowing error compensation (named no-BEC) is evaluated. The results show that the BP-BEC outperforms the no-BEC by about 60.1% and 73.6% in terms of positioning accuracy and robustness, respectively. Moreover, the execution time of the BP-BEC algorithm is also evaluated, and results show that the convergence speed of the proposed algorithm has an insignificant effect on real-time localization.

"Living cadavers" in Bangladesh: bioviolence in the human organ bazaar.

PubMed

Moniruzzaman, Monir

2012-03-01

The technology-driven demand for the extraction of human organs--mainly kidneys, but also liver lobes and single corneas--has created an illegal market in body parts. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, in this article I examine the body bazaar in Bangladesh: in particular, the process of selling organs and the experiences of 33 kidney sellers who are victims of this trade. The sellers' narratives reveal how wealthy buyers (both recipients and brokers) tricked Bangladeshi poor into selling their kidneys; in the end, these sellers were brutally deceived and their suffering was extreme. I therefore argue that the current practice of organ commodification is both exploitative and unethical, as organs are removed from the bodies of the poor by inflicting a novel form of bioviolence against them. This bioviolence is deliberately silenced by vested interest groups for their personal gain.

A Geology Sampling System for Small Bodies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Naids, Adam J.; Hood, Anthony D.; Abell, Paul; Graff, Trevor; Buffington, Jesse

2016-01-01

Human exploration of microgravity bodies is being investigated as a precursor to a Mars surface mission. Asteroids, comets, dwarf planets, and the moons of Mars all fall into this microgravity category and some are being discussed as potential mission targets. Obtaining geological samples for return to Earth will be a major objective for any mission to a small body. Currently, the knowledge base for geology sampling in microgravity is in its infancy. Humans interacting with non-engineered surfaces in microgravity environment pose unique challenges. In preparation for such missions a team at the NASA Johnson Space Center has been working to gain experience on how to safely obtain numerous sample types in such an environment. This paper describes the type of samples the science community is interested in, highlights notable prototype work, and discusses an integrated geology sampling solution.

A Geology Sampling System for Microgravity Bodies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hood, Anthony; Naids, Adam

2016-01-01

Human exploration of microgravity bodies is being investigated as a precursor to a Mars surface mission. Asteroids, comets, dwarf planets, and the moons of Mars all fall into this microgravity category and some are been discussed as potential mission targets. Obtaining geological samples for return to Earth will be a major objective for any mission to a microgravity body. Currently the knowledge base for geology sampling in microgravity is in its infancy. Humans interacting with non-engineered surfaces in microgravity environment pose unique challenges. In preparation for such missions a team at the NASA Johnson Space Center has been working to gain experience on how to safely obtain numerous sample types in such an environment. This paper describes the type of samples the science community is interested in, highlights notable prototype work, and discusses an integrated geology sampling solution.

The Body That Speaks: Recombining Bodies and Speech Sources in Unscripted Face-to-Face Communication.

PubMed

Gillespie, Alex; Corti, Kevin

2016-01-01

This article examines advances in research methods that enable experimental substitution of the speaking body in unscripted face-to-face communication. A taxonomy of six hybrid social agents is presented by combining three types of bodies (mechanical, virtual, and human) with either an artificial or human speech source. Our contribution is to introduce and explore the significance of two particular hybrids: (1) the cyranoid method that enables humans to converse face-to-face through the medium of another person's body, and (2) the echoborg method that enables artificial intelligence to converse face-to-face through the medium of a human body. These two methods are distinct in being able to parse the unique influence of the human body when combined with various speech sources. We also introduce a new framework for conceptualizing the body's role in communication, distinguishing three levels: self's perspective on the body, other's perspective on the body, and self's perspective of other's perspective on the body. Within each level the cyranoid and echoborg methodologies make important research questions tractable. By conceptualizing and synthesizing these methods, we outline a novel paradigm of research on the role of the body in unscripted face-to-face communication.

The Body That Speaks: Recombining Bodies and Speech Sources in Unscripted Face-to-Face Communication

PubMed Central

Gillespie, Alex; Corti, Kevin

2016-01-01

This article examines advances in research methods that enable experimental substitution of the speaking body in unscripted face-to-face communication. A taxonomy of six hybrid social agents is presented by combining three types of bodies (mechanical, virtual, and human) with either an artificial or human speech source. Our contribution is to introduce and explore the significance of two particular hybrids: (1) the cyranoid method that enables humans to converse face-to-face through the medium of another person's body, and (2) the echoborg method that enables artificial intelligence to converse face-to-face through the medium of a human body. These two methods are distinct in being able to parse the unique influence of the human body when combined with various speech sources. We also introduce a new framework for conceptualizing the body's role in communication, distinguishing three levels: self's perspective on the body, other's perspective on the body, and self's perspective of other's perspective on the body. Within each level the cyranoid and echoborg methodologies make important research questions tractable. By conceptualizing and synthesizing these methods, we outline a novel paradigm of research on the role of the body in unscripted face-to-face communication. PMID:27660616

Hierarchical graphical-based human pose estimation via local multi-resolution convolutional neural network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, Aichun; Wang, Tian; Snoussi, Hichem

2018-03-01

This paper addresses the problems of the graphical-based human pose estimation in still images, including the diversity of appearances and confounding background clutter. We present a new architecture for estimating human pose using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). Firstly, a Relative Mixture Deformable Model (RMDM) is defined by each pair of connected parts to compute the relative spatial information in the graphical model. Secondly, a Local Multi-Resolution Convolutional Neural Network (LMR-CNN) is proposed to train and learn the multi-scale representation of each body parts by combining different levels of part context. Thirdly, a LMR-CNN based hierarchical model is defined to explore the context information of limb parts. Finally, the experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed deep learning approach for human pose estimation.

Extended specificity studies of mRNA assays used to infer human organ tissues and body fluids.

PubMed

van den Berge, Margreet; Sijen, Titia

2017-12-01

Messenger RNA (mRNA) profiling is a technique increasingly applied for the forensic identification of body fluids and skin. More recently, an mRNA-based organ typing assay was developed which allows for the inference of brain, lung, liver, skeletal muscle, heart, kidney, and skin tissue. When applying this organ typing system in forensic casework for the presence of animal, rather than human, tissue is an alternative scenario to be proposed, for instance that bullets carry cell material from a hunting event. Even though mRNA profiling systems are commonly in silico designed to be primate specific, physical testing against other animal species is generally limited. In this study, human specificity of the organ tissue inferring system was assessed against organ tissue RNAs of various animals. Results confirm human specificity of the system, especially when utilizing interpretation rules considering multiple markers per cell type. Besides, we cross-tested our organ and body fluid mRNA assays against the target types covered by the other assay. Marker expression in the nontarget organ tissues and body fluids was observed to a limited extent, which emphasizes the importance of involving the case-specific context of the forensic samples in deciding which mRNA profiling assay to use and when for interpreting results. © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Serological prevalence of human parvovirus B19 in diseases or disordersrelated to different human body systems.

PubMed

Aktaş, Osman; Aydin, Hakan; Uslu, Hakan

2016-02-17

Human parvovirus B19 is a pathogen that affects different parts of the body. We planned this study because of the lack of data on B19 seroprevalence based on different body-system diseases. The prevalence of parvovirus B19 antibodies was investigated retrospectively in 1239 patients by review of medical records from 2009-2012, according to their diseases classified under general titles in compliance with the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10). Parvovirus B19-specific antibodies were detected by quantitative enzyme immunoassays. The positivity rate was 27.8% for only IgG, 8.5% for only IgM, and 2.6% for both IgG and IgM. The highest positivity for IgG alone was found in musculoskeletal system and connective tissue diseases (55.9%), while the highest positivity for IgM was found in neoplasms (16.4%). The highest positivity for IgG was seen in rheumatoid arthritis (72.2%) and pregnancy (52.6%), and the highest positivity for total IgM was found in upper respiratory tract disease (21.0%) and hepatic failure (17.1%). Parvovirus B19 seroprevalence was relatively low in northeastern Anatolia compared to most serological studies conducted in other regions. We think that this study has provided the first wide-ranging information on the seroprevalence of B19 in diseases and disorders of the major human body systems.

A Preliminary Study for Evaluating the Dose-Dependent Effect of d-Allulose for Fat Mass Reduction in Adult Humans: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial.

PubMed

Han, Youngji; Kwon, Eun-Young; Yu, Mi Kyeong; Lee, Seon Jeong; Kim, Hye-Jin; Kim, Seong-Bo; Kim, Yang Hee; Choi, Myung-Sook

2018-01-31

d-allulose is a rare sugar with zero energy that can be consumed by obese/overweight individuals. Many studies have suggested that zero-calorie d-allulose has beneficial effects on obesity-related metabolism in mouse models, but only a few studies have been performed on human subjects. Therefore, we performed a preliminary study with 121 Korean subjects (aged 20-40 years, body mass index ≥ 23 kg/m²). A randomized controlled trial involving placebo control (sucralose, 0.012 g × 2 times/day), low d-allulose (d-allulose, 4 g × 2 times/day), and high d-allulose (d-allulose, 7 g × 2 times/day) groups was designed. Parameters for body composition, nutrient intake, computed tomography (CT) scan, and plasma lipid profiles were assessed. Body fat percentage and body fat mass were significantly decreased following d-allulose supplementation. The high d-allulose group revealed a significant decrease in not only body mass index (BMI), but also total abdominal and subcutaneous fat areas measured by CT scans compared to the placebo group. There were no significant differences in nutrient intake, plasma lipid profiles, markers of liver and kidney function, and major inflammation markers among groups. These results provide useful information on the dose-dependent effect of d-allulose for overweight/obese adult humans. Based on these results, the efficacy of d-allulose for body fat reduction needs to be validated using dual energy X-ray absorption.

Health effects of indoor odorants.

PubMed Central

Cone, J E; Shusterman, D

1991-01-01

People assess the quality of the air indoors primarily on the basis of its odors and on their perception of associated health risk. The major current contributors to indoor odorants are human occupant odors (body odor), environmental tobacco smoke, volatile building materials, bio-odorants (particularly mold and animal-derived materials), air fresheners, deodorants, and perfumes. These are most often present as complex mixtures, making measurement of the total odorant problem difficult. There is no current method of measuring human body odor, other than by human panel studies of expert judges of air quality. Human body odors have been quantitated in terms of the "olf" which is the amount of air pollution produced by the average person. Another quantitative unit of odorants is the "decipol," which is the perceived level of pollution produced by the average human ventilated by 10 L/sec of unpolluted air or its equivalent level of dissatisfaction from nonhuman air pollutants. The standard regulatory approach, focusing on individual constituents or chemicals, is not likely to be successful in adequately controlling odorants in indoor air. Besides the current approach of setting minimum ventilation standards to prevent health effects due to indoor air pollution, a standard based on the olf or decipol unit might be more efficacious as well as simpler to measure. PMID:1821378

Identifiable piezoelectric security system design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Zhenyu; Zhang, Xiaoming

2017-10-01

Directing at the disadvantages of low environmental suitability, inferior anti-interference ability and being easy to be found and destroyed in existing security product, a kind of identifiable piezoelectric security system based on piezoelectric cable is designed. The present system gathers vibration signals of different moving bodies, such as human, vehicles, animals and so on, with piezoelectric cable buried under -ground and distinguishes the different moving bodies through recognition algorithm and thus giving an alarm. As is shown in experiments, the present system has the features of good concealment and high accuracy in distinguishing moving bodies.

The right to health care for transsexual people in Cuba.

PubMed

Roque, Alberto; Rodríguez, R Mayra

2012-04-01

Gender identity is a sociocultural construct based (in nearly every society) on a binary norm: female and male. Transsexual individuals suffer from intense family and social discrimination because they express a dissident sexuality incongruent with this norm. They assert they feel trapped in a body that does not belong to them, so they seek help from health professionals to modify their bodies, to "adapt their bodies to their minds." This essay discusses health care for transsexual persons in Cuba from a human rights perspective that does not pathologize their gender identification.

Embodied mental rotation: a special link between egocentric transformation and the bodily self

PubMed Central

Kaltner, Sandra; Riecke, Bernhard E.; Jansen, Petra

2014-01-01

This experiment investigated the influence of motor expertise on object-based versus egocentric transformations in a chronometric mental rotation task using images of either the own or another person’s body as stimulus material. According to the embodied cognition viewpoint, we hypothesized motor-experts to outperform non-motor experts specifically in the egocentric condition because of higher kinesthetic representation and motor simulations compared to object-based transformations. In line with this, we expected that images of the own body are solved faster than another person’s body stimuli. Results showed a benefit of motor expertise and representations of another person’s body, but only for the object-based transformation task. That is, this other-advantage diminishes in egocentric transformations. Since motor experts did not show any specific expertise in rotational movements, we concluded that using human bodies as stimulus material elicits embodied spatial transformations, which facilitates performance exclusively for egocentric transformations. Regarding stimulus material, the other-advantage ascribed to increased self-awareness-consciousness distracting attention-demanding resources, disappeared in the egocentric condition. This result may be due to the stronger link between the bodily self and motor representations compared to that emerging in object-based transformations. PMID:24917832

Simulating the decentralized processes of the human immune system in a virtual anatomy model.

PubMed

Sarpe, Vladimir; Jacob, Christian

2013-01-01

Many physiological processes within the human body can be perceived and modeled as large systems of interacting particles or swarming agents. The complex processes of the human immune system prove to be challenging to capture and illustrate without proper reference to the spatial distribution of immune-related organs and systems. Our work focuses on physical aspects of immune system processes, which we implement through swarms of agents. This is our first prototype for integrating different immune processes into one comprehensive virtual physiology simulation. Using agent-based methodology and a 3-dimensional modeling and visualization environment (LINDSAY Composer), we present an agent-based simulation of the decentralized processes in the human immune system. The agents in our model - such as immune cells, viruses and cytokines - interact through simulated physics in two different, compartmentalized and decentralized 3-dimensional environments namely, (1) within the tissue and (2) inside a lymph node. While the two environments are separated and perform their computations asynchronously, an abstract form of communication is allowed in order to replicate the exchange, transportation and interaction of immune system agents between these sites. The distribution of simulated processes, that can communicate across multiple, local CPUs or through a network of machines, provides a starting point to build decentralized systems that replicate larger-scale processes within the human body, thus creating integrated simulations with other physiological systems, such as the circulatory, endocrine, or nervous system. Ultimately, this system integration across scales is our goal for the LINDSAY Virtual Human project. Our current immune system simulations extend our previous work on agent-based simulations by introducing advanced visualizations within the context of a virtual human anatomy model. We also demonstrate how to distribute a collection of connected simulations over a network of computers. As a future endeavour, we plan to use parameter tuning techniques on our model to further enhance its biological credibility. We consider these in silico experiments and their associated modeling and optimization techniques as essential components in further enhancing our capabilities of simulating a whole-body, decentralized immune system, to be used both for medical education and research as well as for virtual studies in immunoinformatics.

Study of human phonation in a full-body domain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saurabh, Shakti; Bodony, Daniel

2015-11-01

The generation and propagation of the human voice is studied in two-dimensions using a full-body domain, using direct numerical simulation. The fluid/air in the vocal tract is modeled as a compressible and viscous fluid interacting with the non-linear, viscoelastic vocal folds (VF). The VF tissue material properties are multi-layered, with varying stiffness, and a finite-strain model is utilized and implemented in a quadratic finite element code. The fluid-solid domains are coupled through a boundary-fitted interface and utilize a Poisson equation-based mesh deformation method. The full-body domain includes the near VF region, the vocal tract, a simplified model of the soft palate and mouth, and extends out into the acoustic far-field. A new kind of inflow boundary condition based upon a quasi-one-dimensional formulation with constant sub-glottal volume velocity, which is linked to the VF movement, has been adopted. The sound pressure levels (SPL) measured are realistic and we analyze their connection to the VF dynamics and glottal and vocal tract geometries. Supported by the National Science Foundation (CAREER award number 1150439).

Construction of a mathematical model of the human body, taking the nonlinear rigidity of the spine into account

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Glukharev, K. K.; Morozova, N. I.; Potemkin, B. A.; Solovyev, V. S.; Frolov, K. V.

1973-01-01

A mathematical model of the human body was constructed, under the action of harmonic vibrations, in the 2.5-7 Hz frequency range. In this frequency range, the model of the human body as a vibrating system, with concentrated parameters is considered. Vertical movements of the seat and vertical components of vibrations of the human body are investigated.

Computational modeling of blast wave interaction with a human body and assessment of traumatic brain injury

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tan, X. G.; Przekwas, A. J.; Gupta, R. K.

2017-11-01

The modeling of human body biomechanics resulting from blast exposure poses great challenges because of the complex geometry and the substantial material heterogeneity. We developed a detailed human body finite element model representing both the geometry and the materials realistically. The model includes the detailed head (face, skull, brain and spinal cord), the neck, the skeleton, air cavities (lungs) and the tissues. Hence, it can be used to properly model the stress wave propagation in the human body subjected to blast loading. The blast loading on the human was generated from a simulated C4 explosion. We used the highly scalable solvers in the multi-physics code CoBi for both the blast simulation and the human body biomechanics. The meshes generated for these simulations are of good quality so that relatively large time-step sizes can be used without resorting to artificial time scaling treatments. The coupled gas dynamics and biomechanics solutions were validated against the shock tube test data. The human body models were used to conduct parametric simulations to find the biomechanical response and the brain injury mechanism due to blasts impacting the human body. Under the same blast loading condition, we showed the importance of inclusion of the whole body.

Experimental and numerical study of physiological responses in hot environments.

PubMed

Yang, Jie; Weng, Wenguo; Zhang, Baoting

2014-10-01

This paper proposed a multi-node human thermal model to predict human thermal responses in hot environments. The model was extended based on the Tanabe's work by considering the effects of high temperature on heat production, blood flow rate, and heat exchange coefficients. Five healthy men dressed in shorts were exposed in thermal neutral (29 °C) and high temperature (45 °C) environments. The rectal temperatures and skin temperatures of seven human body segments were continuously measured during the experiment. Validation of this model was conducted with experimental data. The results showed that the current model could accurately predict the skin and core temperatures in terms of the tendency and absolute values. In the human body segments expect calf and trunk, the temperature differences between the experimental data and the predicted results in high temperature environment were smaller than those in the thermally neutral environment conditions. The extended model was proved to be capable of predicting accurately human physiological responses in hot environments. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Contemporary Challenge to State Sovereignty: Gangs and Other Illicit Transnational Criminal Organizations in Central America, El Salvador, Mexico, Jamaica, and Brazil

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-12-01

Criminal values are derived from norms based on slave holding, sexual activity with minors and their exploitation in prostitution, the farming of humans...values from norms based on slave holding, sexual activity with minors and their exploitation in prostitution, the “farming” of humans for body...de Cocaina, abuso de drogas (Coca Paste and Cocaine: The Abuse of Drugs), Lima: CEDRO, 1990, pp. 301-321; Stephen E. Flynn, The Transnational Drug

Microwave non-contact imaging of subcutaneous human body tissues

PubMed Central

Chernokalov, Alexander; Khripkov, Alexander; Cho, Jaegeol; Druchinin, Sergey

2015-01-01

A small-size microwave sensor is developed for non-contact imaging of a human body structure in 2D, enabling fitness and health monitoring using mobile devices. A method for human body tissue structure imaging is developed and experimentally validated. Subcutaneous fat tissue reconstruction depth of up to 70 mm and maximum fat thickness measurement error below 2 mm are demonstrated by measurements with a human body phantom and human subjects. Electrically small antennas are developed for integration of the microwave sensor into a mobile device. Usability of the developed microwave sensor for fitness applications, healthcare, and body weight management is demonstrated. PMID:26609415

Defining the proteome of human iris, ciliary body, retinal pigment epithelium, and choroid.

PubMed

Zhang, Pingbo; Kirby, David; Dufresne, Craig; Chen, Yan; Turner, Randi; Ferri, Sara; Edward, Deepak P; Van Eyk, Jennifer E; Semba, Richard D

2016-04-01

The iris is a fine structure that controls the amount of light that enters the eye. The ciliary body controls the shape of the lens and produces aqueous humor. The retinal pigment epithelium and choroid (RPE/choroid) are essential in supporting the retina and absorbing light energy that enters the eye. Proteins were extracted from iris, ciliary body, and RPE/choroid tissues of eyes from five individuals and fractionated using SDS-PAGE. After in-gel digestion, peptides were analyzed using LC-MS/MS on an Orbitrap Elite mass spectrometer. In iris, ciliary body, and RPE/choroid, we identified 2959, 2867, and 2755 nonredundant proteins with peptide and protein false-positive rates of <0.1% and <1%, respectively. Forty-three unambiguous protein isoforms were identified in iris, ciliary body, and RPE/choroid. Four "missing proteins" were identified in ciliary body based on ≥2 proteotypic peptides. The mass spectrometric proteome database of the human iris, ciliary body, and RPE/choroid may serve as a valuable resource for future investigations of the eye in health and disease. The MS proteomics data have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange Consortium via the PRIDE partner repository with the dataset identifiers PXD001424 and PXD002194. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Collection and identification of human remains volatiles by non-contact, dynamic airflow sampling and SPME-GC/MS using various sorbent materials.

PubMed

DeGreeff, Lauryn E; Furton, Kenneth G

2011-09-01

Human remains detection canines are used in locating deceased humans in diverse scenarios and environments based on odor produced during the decay process of the human body. It has been established that human remains detection canines are capable of locating human remains specifically, as opposed to living humans or animal remains, thus suggesting a difference in odor between the different sources. This work explores the collection and determination of such odors using a dynamic headspace concentration device. The airflow rate and three sorbent materials-Dukal cotton gauze, Johnson & Johnson cotton-blend gauze, and polyester material-used for odor collection were evaluated using standard compounds. It was determined that higher airflow rates and openly woven material, e.g., Dukal cotton gauze, yielded significantly less total volatile compounds due to compound breakthrough through the sorbent material. Collection from polymer- and cellulose-based materials demonstrated that the molecular backbone of the material is a factor in compound collection as well. Volatiles, including cyclic and straight-chain hydrocarbons, organic acids, sulfides, aldehydes, ketones, and alcohols, were collected from a population of 27 deceased bodies from two collection locations. The common compounds between the subjects were compared and the odor profiles were determined. These odor profiles were compared with those of animal remains and living human subjects collected in the same manner. Principal component analysis showed that the odor profiles of the three sample types were distinct.

Human microbiomes and their roles in dysbiosis, common diseases, and novel therapeutic approaches

PubMed Central

Belizário, José E.; Napolitano, Mauro

2015-01-01

The human body is the residence of a large number of commensal (non-pathogenic) and pathogenic microbial species that have co-evolved with the human genome, adaptive immune system, and diet. With recent advances in DNA-based technologies, we initiated the exploration of bacterial gene functions and their role in human health. The main goal of the human microbiome project is to characterize the abundance, diversity and functionality of the genes present in all microorganisms that permanently live in different sites of the human body. The gut microbiota expresses over 3.3 million bacterial genes, while the human genome expresses only 20 thousand genes. Microbe gene-products exert pivotal functions via the regulation of food digestion and immune system development. Studies are confirming that manipulation of non-pathogenic bacterial strains in the host can stimulate the recovery of the immune response to pathogenic bacteria causing diseases. Different approaches, including the use of nutraceutics (prebiotics and probiotics) as well as phages engineered with CRISPR/Cas systems and quorum sensing systems have been developed as new therapies for controlling dysbiosis (alterations in microbial community) and common diseases (e.g., diabetes and obesity). The designing and production of pharmaceuticals based on our own body’s microbiome is an emerging field and is rapidly growing to be fully explored in the near future. This review provides an outlook on recent findings on the human microbiomes, their impact on health and diseases, and on the development of targeted therapies. PMID:26500616

Self-Reconfiguration Planning of Robot Embodiment for Inherent Safe Performance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Uchida, Masafumi; Nozawa, Akio; Asano, Hirotoshi; Onogaki, Hitoshi; Mizuno, Tota; Park, Young-Il; Ide, Hideto; Yokoyama, Shuichi

In the situation in which a robot and a human work together by collaborating with each other, a robot and a human share one working environment, and each interferes in each other. In other ward, it is impossible to avoid the physical contact and the interaction of force between a robot and a human. The boundary of each complex dynamic occupation area changes in the connection movement which is the component of collaborative works at this time. The main restraint condition which relates to the robustness of that connection movement is each physical charactristics, that is, the embodiment. A robot body is variability though the embodiment of a human is almost fixed. Therefore, the safe and the robust connection movement is brought when a robot has the robot body which is well suitable for the embodiment of a human. A purpose for this research is that the colaboration works between the self-reconfiguration robot and a human is realized. To achieve this purpose, a self-reconfiguration algorithm based on some indexes to evaluate a robot body in the macroscopic point of view was examined on a modular robot system of the 2-D lattice structure. In this paper, it investigated effect specially that the object of learning of each individual was limited to the cooperative behavior between the adjoining modules toward the macroscopic evaluation index.

A Reassessment of Bergmann's Rule in Modern Humans

PubMed Central

Foster, Frederick; Collard, Mark

2013-01-01

It is widely accepted that modern humans conform to Bergmann's rule, which holds that body size in endothermic species will increase as temperature decreases. However, there are reasons to question the reliability of the findings on which this consensus is based. One of these is that the main studies that have reported that modern humans conform to Bergmann's rule have employed samples that contain a disproportionately large number of warm-climate and northern hemisphere groups. With this in mind, we used latitudinally-stratified and hemisphere-specific samples to re-assess the relationship between modern human body size and temperature. We found that when groups from north and south of the equator were analyzed together, Bergmann's rule was supported. However, when groups were separated by hemisphere, Bergmann's rule was only supported in the northern hemisphere. In the course of exploring these results further, we found that the difference between our northern and southern hemisphere subsamples is due to the limited latitudinal and temperature range in the latter subsample. Thus, our study suggests that modern humans do conform to Bergmann's rule but only when there are major differences in latitude and temperature among groups. Specifically, groups must span more than 50 degrees of latitude and/or more than 30°C for it to hold. This finding has important implications for work on regional variation in human body size and its relationship to temperature. PMID:24015229

Human Pathophysiological Adaptations to the Space Environment

PubMed Central

Demontis, Gian C.; Germani, Marco M.; Caiani, Enrico G.; Barravecchia, Ivana; Passino, Claudio; Angeloni, Debora

2017-01-01

Space is an extreme environment for the human body, where during long-term missions microgravity and high radiation levels represent major threats to crew health. Intriguingly, space flight (SF) imposes on the body of highly selected, well-trained, and healthy individuals (astronauts and cosmonauts) pathophysiological adaptive changes akin to an accelerated aging process and to some diseases. Such effects, becoming manifest over a time span of weeks (i.e., cardiovascular deconditioning) to months (i.e., loss of bone density and muscle atrophy) of exposure to weightlessness, can be reduced through proper countermeasures during SF and in due time are mostly reversible after landing. Based on these considerations, it is increasingly accepted that SF might provide a mechanistic insight into certain pathophysiological processes, a concept of interest to pre-nosological medicine. In this article, we will review the main stress factors encountered in space and their impact on the human body and will also discuss the possible lessons learned with space exploration in reference to human health on Earth. In fact, this is a productive, cross-fertilized, endeavor in which studies performed on Earth yield countermeasures for protection of space crew health, and space research is translated into health measures for Earth-bound population. PMID:28824446

Dignity and the ownership and use of body parts.

PubMed

Foster, Charles

2014-10-01

Property-based models of the ownership of body parts are common. They are inadequate. They fail to deal satisfactorily with many important problems, and even when they do work, they rely on ideas that have to be derived from deeper, usually unacknowledged principles. This article proposes that the parent principle is always human dignity, and that one will get more satisfactory answers if one interrogates the older, wiser parent instead of the younger, callow offspring. But human dignity has a credibility problem. It is often seen as hopelessly amorphous or incurably theological. These accusations are often just. But a more thorough exegesis exculpates dignity and gives it its proper place at the fountainhead of bioethics. Dignity is objective human thriving. Thriving considerations can and should be applied to dead people as well as live ones. To use dignity properly, the unit of bioethical analysis needs to be the whole transaction rather than (for instance) the doctor-patient relationship. The dignity interests of all the stakeholders are assessed in a sort of utilitarianism. Its use in relation to body part ownership is demonstrated. Article 8(1) of the European Convention of Human Rights endorses and mandates this approach.

Human Pathophysiological Adaptations to the Space Environment.

PubMed

Demontis, Gian C; Germani, Marco M; Caiani, Enrico G; Barravecchia, Ivana; Passino, Claudio; Angeloni, Debora

2017-01-01

Space is an extreme environment for the human body, where during long-term missions microgravity and high radiation levels represent major threats to crew health. Intriguingly, space flight (SF) imposes on the body of highly selected, well-trained, and healthy individuals (astronauts and cosmonauts) pathophysiological adaptive changes akin to an accelerated aging process and to some diseases. Such effects, becoming manifest over a time span of weeks (i.e., cardiovascular deconditioning) to months (i.e., loss of bone density and muscle atrophy) of exposure to weightlessness, can be reduced through proper countermeasures during SF and in due time are mostly reversible after landing. Based on these considerations, it is increasingly accepted that SF might provide a mechanistic insight into certain pathophysiological processes, a concept of interest to pre-nosological medicine. In this article, we will review the main stress factors encountered in space and their impact on the human body and will also discuss the possible lessons learned with space exploration in reference to human health on Earth. In fact, this is a productive, cross-fertilized, endeavor in which studies performed on Earth yield countermeasures for protection of space crew health, and space research is translated into health measures for Earth-bound population.

Simulation study on transient electric shock characteristics of human body under high voltage ac transmission lines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Tao; Zou, Yanhui; Lv, Jianhong; Yang, Jinchun; Tao, Li; Zhou, Jianfei

2017-09-01

Human body under high-voltage AC transmission lines will produce a certain induced voltage due to the electrostatic induction. When the human body contacts with some grounded objects, the charges transfer from the body to the ground and produce contact current which may cause transient electric shock. Using CDEGS and ATP/EMTP, the paper proposes a method for quantitatively calculating the transient electric shock characteristics. It calculates the human body voltage, discharge current and discharge energy under certain 500kV compact-type transmission lines and predicts the corresponding human feelings. The results show that the average root value of discharge current is less than 10mA when the human body is under the 500kV compact-type transmission lines and the human body is overall safe if the transmission lines satisfy the relevant design specifications. It concludes that the electric field strength above the ground should be limited to 4kV/m through the residential area for the purpose of reducing the electromagnetic impact.

[The gift of human body's products: philosophical and ethical aspects].

PubMed

Baertschi, B

2014-09-01

In continental Europe, there is a very strong moral condemnation against putting parts or products of the human body on sale-and, consequently, against putting sperms and oocytes on sale. Only a gift is morally permissible. The situation is different in Anglo-Saxon countries. Who is right? Above all, it must be noticed that two views of the human body are facing each other here: for the first, the human body is a part of the person (so, it partakes of the person's dignity), whereas for the second, the human body is a possession of the person (the person is the owner of his/her body). In my opinion, the argument of dignity comes up against serious objections, and the property argument is more consistent. However, it does not follow that it would be judicious to put parts and products of the human body for sale on a market. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Investigation of human body potential measured by a non-contact measuring system.

PubMed

Ichikawa, Norimitsu

2016-12-07

A human body is occasionally electrified in a room. This charged object will be a source of electrostatic accidents, including the malfunction of electronic equipment. Hence, prevention of these accidents is required. Accidents occasionally occur, even though antistatic clothes and shoes are used. One of the causes for these accidents is that there is a lack of the preventive measures. This situation occurs when using, for example, unconductive wax. In this study, human body potential (voltage) is measured using a non-contact measuring system. An investigation of the human body's voltage when using this system is conducted. The result demonstrates that the voltage of a human body wearing antistatic clothes and shoes or light clothes and slippers exceeds a malfunctioning voltage of a microelectronics device when the body walks on floors. Thus, accidents may occur even if a human body wearing the antistatic clothes walks on flooring. These results will be useful in estimating determination whether electrostatic accidents occur or not.

Command Recognition of Robot with Low Dimension Whole-Body Haptic Sensor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ito, Tatsuya; Tsuji, Toshiaki

The authors have developed “haptic armor”, a whole-body haptic sensor that has an ability to estimate contact position. Although it is developed for safety assurance of robots in human environment, it can also be used as an interface. This paper proposes a command recognition method based on finger trace information. This paper also discusses some technical issues for improving recognition accuracy of this system.

Active numerical model of human body for reconstruction of falls from height.

PubMed

Milanowicz, Marcin; Kędzior, Krzysztof

2017-01-01

Falls from height constitute the largest group of incidents out of approximately 90,000 occupational accidents occurring each year in Poland. Reconstruction of the exact course of a fall from height is generally difficult due to lack of sufficient information from the accident scene. This usually results in several contradictory versions of an incident and impedes, for example, determination of the liability in a judicial process. In similar situations, in many areas of human activity, researchers apply numerical simulation. They use it to model physical phenomena to reconstruct their real course over time; e.g. numerical human body models are frequently used for investigation and reconstruction of road accidents. However, they are validated in terms of specific road traffic accidents and are considerably limited when applied to the reconstruction of other types of accidents. The objective of the study was to develop an active numerical human body model to be used for reconstruction of accidents associated with falling from height. Development of the model involved extension and adaptation of the existing Pedestrian human body model (available in the MADYMO package database) for the purposes of reconstruction of falls from height by taking into account the human reaction to the loss of balance. The model was developed by using the results of experimental tests of the initial phase of the fall from height. The active numerical human body model covering 28 sets of initial conditions related to various human reactions to the loss of balance was developed. The application of the model was illustrated by using it to reconstruct a real fall from height. From among the 28 sets of initial conditions, those whose application made it possible to reconstruct the most probable version of the incident was selected. The selection was based on comparison of the results of the reconstruction with information contained in the accident report. Results in the form of estimated injuries overlap with the real injuries sustained by the casualty. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Assessment of human body influence on exposure measurements of electric field in indoor enclosures.

PubMed

de Miguel-Bilbao, Silvia; García, Jorge; Ramos, Victoria; Blas, Juan

2015-02-01

Personal exposure meters (PEMs) used for measuring exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) are typically used in epidemiological studies. As is well known, these measurement devices cause a perturbation of real EMF exposure levels due to the presence of the human body in the immediate proximity. This paper aims to model the alteration caused by the body shadow effect (BSE) in motion conditions and in indoor enclosures at the Wi-Fi frequency of 2.4 GHz. For this purpose, simulation techniques based on ray-tracing have been carried out, and their results have been verified experimentally. A good agreement exists between simulation and experimental results in terms of electric field (E-field) levels, and taking into account the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the spatial distribution of amplitude. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test provides a P-value greater than 0.05, in fact close to 1. It has been found that the influence of the presence of the human body can be characterized as an angle of shadow that depends on the dimensions of the indoor enclosure. The CDFs show that the E-field levels in indoor conditions follow a lognormal distribution in the absence of the human body and under the influence of BSE. In conclusion, the perturbation caused by BSE in PEMs readings cannot be compensated for by correction factors. Although the mean value is well adjusted, BSE causes changes in CDF that would require improvements in measurement protocols and in the design of measuring devices to subsequently avoid systematic errors. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

High pH solubilization and chromatography-based renaturation and purification of recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor from inclusion bodies.

PubMed

Li, Ming; Fan, Hua; Liu, Jiahua; Wang, Minhong; Wang, Lili; Wang, Chaozhan

2012-03-01

Recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (rhG-CSF) is a very efficient therapeutic protein drug which has been widely used in human clinics to treat cancer patients suffering from chemotherapy-induced neutropenia. In this study, rhG-CSF was solubilized from inclusion bodies by using a high-pH solution containing low concentration of urea. It was found that solubilization of the rhG-CSF inclusion bodies greatly depended on the buffer pH employed; alkalic pH significantly favored the solubilization. In addition, when small amount of urea was added to the solution at high pH, the solubilization was further enhanced. After solubilization, the rhG-CSF was renatured with simultaneous purification by using weak anion exchange, strong anion exchange, and hydrophobic interaction chromatography, separately. The results indicated that the rhG-CSF solubilized by the high-pH solution containing low concentration of urea had much higher mass recovery than the one solubilized by 8 M urea when using anyone of the three refolding methods employed in this work. In the case of weak anion exchange chromatography, the high pH solubilized rhG-CSF could get a mass recovery of 73%. The strategy of combining solubilization of inclusion bodies at high pH with refolding of protein using liquid chromatography may become a routine method for protein production from inclusion bodies.

Dimensional coordinate measurements: application in characterizing cervical spine motion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zheng, Weilong; Li, Linan; Wang, Shibin; Wang, Zhiyong; Shi, Nianke; Xue, Yuan

2014-06-01

Cervical spine as a complicated part in the human body, the form of its movement is diverse. The movements of the segments of vertebrae are three-dimensional, and it is reflected in the changes of the angle between two joint and the displacement in different directions. Under normal conditions, cervical can flex, extend, lateral flex and rotate. For there is no relative motion between measuring marks fixed on one segment of cervical vertebra, the cervical vertebrae with three marked points can be seen as a body. Body's motion in space can be decomposed into translational movement and rotational movement around a base point .This study concerns the calculation of dimensional coordinate of the marked points pasted to the human body's cervical spine by an optical method. Afterward, these measures will allow the calculation of motion parameters for every spine segment. For this study, we choose a three-dimensional measurement method based on binocular stereo vision. The object with marked points is placed in front of the CCD camera. Through each shot, we will get there two parallax images taken from different cameras. According to the principle of binocular vision we can be realized three-dimensional measurements. Cameras are erected parallelly. This paper describes the layout of experimental system and a mathematical model to get the coordinates.

Human spaceflight and space adaptations: Computational simulation of gravitational unloading on the spine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Townsend, Molly T.; Sarigul-Klijn, Nesrin

2018-04-01

Living in reduced gravitational environments for a prolonged duration such, as a fly by mission to Mars or an extended stay at the international space station, affects the human body - in particular, the spine. As the spine adapts to spaceflight, morphological and physiological changes cause the mechanical integrity of the spinal column to be compromised, potentially endangering internal organs, nervous health, and human body mechanical function. Therefore, a high fidelity computational model and simulation of the whole human spine was created and validated for the purpose of investigating the mechanical integrity of the spine in crew members during exploratory space missions. A spaceflight exposed spine has been developed through the adaptation of a three-dimensional nonlinear finite element model with the updated Lagrangian formulation of a healthy ground-based human spine in vivo. Simulation of the porohyperelastic response of the intervertebral disc to mechanical unloading resulted in a model capable of accurately predicting spinal swelling/lengthening, spinal motion, and internal stress distribution. The curvature of this space adaptation exposed spine model was compared to a control terrestrial-based finite element model, indicating how the shape changed. Finally, the potential of injury sites to crew members are predicted for a typical 9 day mission.

The placenta harbors a unique microbiome.

PubMed

Aagaard, Kjersti; Ma, Jun; Antony, Kathleen M; Ganu, Radhika; Petrosino, Joseph; Versalovic, James

2014-05-21

Humans and their microbiomes have coevolved as a physiologic community composed of distinct body site niches with metabolic and antigenic diversity. The placental microbiome has not been robustly interrogated, despite recent demonstrations of intracellular bacteria with diverse metabolic and immune regulatory functions. A population-based cohort of placental specimens collected under sterile conditions from 320 subjects with extensive clinical data was established for comparative 16S ribosomal DNA-based and whole-genome shotgun (WGS) metagenomic studies. Identified taxa and their gene carriage patterns were compared to other human body site niches, including the oral, skin, airway (nasal), vaginal, and gut microbiomes from nonpregnant controls. We characterized a unique placental microbiome niche, composed of nonpathogenic commensal microbiota from the Firmicutes, Tenericutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Fusobacteria phyla. In aggregate, the placental microbiome profiles were most akin (Bray-Curtis dissimilarity <0.3) to the human oral microbiome. 16S-based operational taxonomic unit analyses revealed associations of the placental microbiome with a remote history of antenatal infection (permutational multivariate analysis of variance, P = 0.006), such as urinary tract infection in the first trimester, as well as with preterm birth <37 weeks (P = 0.001). Copyright © 2014, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

IMU-Based Joint Angle Measurement for Gait Analysis

PubMed Central

Seel, Thomas; Raisch, Jorg; Schauer, Thomas

2014-01-01

This contribution is concerned with joint angle calculation based on inertial measurement data in the context of human motion analysis. Unlike most robotic devices, the human body lacks even surfaces and right angles. Therefore, we focus on methods that avoid assuming certain orientations in which the sensors are mounted with respect to the body segments. After a review of available methods that may cope with this challenge, we present a set of new methods for: (1) joint axis and position identification; and (2) flexion/extension joint angle measurement. In particular, we propose methods that use only gyroscopes and accelerometers and, therefore, do not rely on a homogeneous magnetic field. We provide results from gait trials of a transfemoral amputee in which we compare the inertial measurement unit (IMU)-based methods to an optical 3D motion capture system. Unlike most authors, we place the optical markers on anatomical landmarks instead of attaching them to the IMUs. Root mean square errors of the knee flexion/extension angles are found to be less than 1° on the prosthesis and about 3° on the human leg. For the plantar/dorsiflexion of the ankle, both deviations are about 1°. PMID:24743160

MaMBA - a functional Moon and Mars Base Analog

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heinicke, C.; Foing, B.

2017-09-01

Despite impressive progress in robotic exploration of celestial bodies, robots are believed to never reach the effectiveness and efficiency of a trained human. Consequently, ESA proposes to build an international Moon Village in roughly 15 years and NASA plans for the first manned mission to Mars shortly after. One of the challenges still remaining is the need for a shelter, a habitat which allows human spacefarers to safely live and work on the surface of a celestial body. Although a number of prototype habitats has been built during the last decades and inhabited for various durations (e.g. MDRS, FMARS, HI-SEAS, M.A.R.S.), these habitats are typically equipped for studies on human factors and would not function in an extraterrestrial environment. Project MaMBA (Moon and Mars Base Analog) aims to build the first functional habitat based on the lessons learned from intermediate and long duration missions at the mentioned habitats. The habitat will serve for testing technologies like life support, power systems, and interplanetary communi­cation. Special attention will be given to the develop­ment of the geoscience laboratory module. Crews will live and work inside the habitat to ensure its functionality.

The venality of human body parts and products in French law and common law.

PubMed

Haoulia, Naima

2012-03-01

The successive bioethics laws in France have constantly argued that the human body is not for sale and consecrated an absolute principle of free and anonymous donations, whether of semen, ova, blood, tissues or organs. Nonetheless, this position is not shared by all countries. These legal divergences upset today our moral principles and the development of these practices leads us to question the legal status of human biological material and its gradual commodification. This paper outlines the current law principles that protect people's interests in their bodies, excised body parts and tissues without conferring the rights of full legal ownership in French law and in Common law. Contrary to what many people believe, people do not legally 'own' their bodies, body parts or tissues. However, they do have some legal rights in relation to their bodies and excised body material. For lawyers, the exact relationship people have with their bodies has raised a host of complex questions and long debates about the status we should grant to human body parts. The significance of this issue is due to two reasons:first, because of the imperative protection we have to assure to human dignity and then, because of the economic value which is attached to human products.

The Role of Nature-Based Experiences in the Development and Maintenance of Wellness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brymer, Eric; Cuddihy, Thomas F.; Sharma-Brymer, Vinathe

2010-01-01

Wellness is now seen as central to redefining the National Health agenda. There is growing evidence that contact with nature and physical activity in nature has considerable positive effects on human health. At the most basic level humanity is reliant on the natural world for resources such as air and water. However, a growing body of research is…

Cannibalism versus funerary defleshing and disarticulation after a period of decay: comparisons of bone modifications from four prehistoric sites.

PubMed

Bello, Silvia M; Wallduck, Rosalind; Dimitrijević, Vesna; Živaljević, Ivana; Stringer, Chris B

2016-12-01

Humanly induced modifications on human and non-human bones from four archaeological sites of known funerary rituals (one interpreted as cannibalism and three interpreted as funerary defleshing and disarticulation after a period of decay) were analyzed to ascertain whether macromorphological and micromorphological characteristics of cut marks can be used to distinguish cannibalistic from secondary burial practices. Four collections were analyzed: the Magdalenian assemblage from Gough's Cave (UK) and the Mesolithic-Neolithic bone samples from Lepenski Vir, Padina and Vlasac (Serbia). A total of 647 cut marks (345 on human and 302 on non-human remains) were imaged and measured using an optical surface measurement system, the Alicona InfiniteFocus, housed at the Natural History Museum (London, UK). The frequency of cut marks at Gough's Cave exceeds 65%, while it is below 1% in the Serbian sites, and no human tooth marks and only one case of percussion damage have been observed on the three Serbian collections. The distribution of cut marks on human bones is comparable in the four assemblages. Cannibalized human remains, however, present a uniform cut mark distribution, which can be associated with disarticulation of persistent and labile articulations, and the scalping and filleting of muscles. For secondary burials where modification occurred after a period of decay, disarticulation marks are less common and the disarticulation of labile joints is rare. The micromorphometric analyses of cut marks on human and non-human remains suggest that cut marks produced when cleaning partially decayed bodies are significantly different from cut marks produced during butchery of fresh bodies. A distinction between cannibalism and secondary treatment of human bodies can be made based on frequency, distribution and micromorphometric characteristics of cut marks. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Integration of Visual and Proprioceptive Limb Position Information in Human Posterior Parietal, Premotor, and Extrastriate Cortex.

PubMed

Limanowski, Jakub; Blankenburg, Felix

2016-03-02

The brain constructs a flexible representation of the body from multisensory information. Previous work on monkeys suggests that the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and ventral premotor cortex (PMv) represent the position of the upper limbs based on visual and proprioceptive information. Human experiments on the rubber hand illusion implicate similar regions, but since such experiments rely on additional visuo-tactile interactions, they cannot isolate visuo-proprioceptive integration. Here, we independently manipulated the position (palm or back facing) of passive human participants' unseen arm and of a photorealistic virtual 3D arm. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) revealed that matching visual and proprioceptive information about arm position engaged the PPC, PMv, and the body-selective extrastriate body area (EBA); activity in the PMv moreover reflected interindividual differences in congruent arm ownership. Further, the PPC, PMv, and EBA increased their coupling with the primary visual cortex during congruent visuo-proprioceptive position information. These results suggest that human PPC, PMv, and EBA evaluate visual and proprioceptive position information and, under sufficient cross-modal congruence, integrate it into a multisensory representation of the upper limb in space. The position of our limbs in space constantly changes, yet the brain manages to represent limb position accurately by combining information from vision and proprioception. Electrophysiological recordings in monkeys have revealed neurons in the posterior parietal and premotor cortices that seem to implement and update such a multisensory limb representation, but this has been difficult to demonstrate in humans. Our fMRI experiment shows that human posterior parietal, premotor, and body-selective visual brain areas respond preferentially to a virtual arm seen in a position corresponding to one's unseen hidden arm, while increasing their communication with regions conveying visual information. These brain areas thus likely integrate visual and proprioceptive information into a flexible multisensory body representation. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/362582-08$15.00/0.

Pelvic dimorphism in relation to body size and body size dimorphism in humans.

PubMed

Kurki, Helen K

2011-12-01

Many mammalian species display sexual dimorphism in the pelvis, where females possess larger dimensions of the obstetric (pelvic) canal than males. This is contrary to the general pattern of body size dimorphism, where males are larger than females. Pelvic dimorphism is often attributed to selection relating to parturition, or as a developmental consequence of secondary sexual differentiation (different allometric growth trajectories of each sex). Among anthropoid primates, species with higher body size dimorphism have higher pelvic dimorphism (in converse directions), which is consistent with an explanation of differential growth trajectories for pelvic dimorphism. This study investigates whether the pattern holds intraspecifically in humans by asking: Do human populations with high body size dimorphism also display high pelvic dimorphism? Previous research demonstrated that in some small-bodied populations, relative pelvic canal size can be larger than in large-bodied populations, while others have suggested that larger-bodied human populations display greater body size dimorphism. Eleven human skeletal samples (total N: male = 229, female = 208) were utilized, representing a range of body sizes and geographical regions. Skeletal measurements of the pelvis and femur were collected and indices of sexual dimorphism for the pelvis and femur were calculated for each sample [ln(M/F)]. Linear regression was used to examine the relationships between indices of pelvic and femoral size dimorphism, and between pelvic dimorphism and female femoral size. Contrary to expectations, the results suggest that pelvic dimorphism in humans is generally not correlated with body size dimorphism or female body size. These results indicate that divergent patterns of dimorphism exist for the pelvis and body size in humans. Implications for the evaluation of the evolution of pelvic dimorphism and rotational childbirth in Homo are considered. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

[Place and role of the body in Christianity].

PubMed

Verspieren, Patrick

Christianity has always been opposed to dualistic models devaluing the human body. The human person is created in God's image to be resurrected on the last day; his or her body is worthy of respect. It is in the body, or more precisely through it, that the human person is called to glorify and reveal the presence of God, manifested in the love between human beings. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Towards a 21st century roadmap for biomedical research and ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Decades of costly failures in translating drug candidates from preclinical disease models to human therapeutic use warrant reconsideration of the priority placed on animal models in biomedical research. Following an international workshop attended by experts from academia, government institutions, research funding bodies and the corporate and NGO sectors, this consensus report analyses, as case studies, five disease areas with major unmet needs for new treatments. In view of the scientifically driven transition towards a human pathways-based paradigm in toxicology, a similar paradigm shift appears to be justified in biomedical research. There is a pressing need for an approach that strategically implements advanced, human biology-based models and tools to understand disease pathways at multiple biological scales. We present recommendations to help achieve this. To discover and develop new therapies, we need 21-century roadmaps for biomedical research based on multiscale human disease pathways, and supported by policy and funding strategies that prioritise human relevance.

The human gut microbiome in health: establishment and resilience of microbiota over a lifetime.

PubMed

Greenhalgh, Kacy; Meyer, Kristen M; Aagaard, Kjersti M; Wilmes, Paul

2016-07-01

With technological advances in culture-independent molecular methods, we are uncovering a new facet of our natural history by accounting for the vast diversity of microbial life which colonizes the human body. The human microbiome contributes functional genes and metabolites which affect human physiology and are, therefore, considered an important factor for maintaining health. Much has been described in the past decade based primarily on 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing regarding the diversity, structure, stability and dynamics of human microbiota in their various body habitats, most notably within the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). Relatively high levels of variation have been described across different stages of life and geographical locations for the GIT microbiome. These observations may prove helpful for the future contextualization of patterns in other body habitats especially in relation to identifying generalizable trends over human lifetime. Given the large degree of complexity and variability, a key challenge will be how to define baseline healthy microbiomes and how to identify features which reflect deviations therefrom in the future. In this context, metagenomics and functional omics will likely play a central role as they will allow resolution of microbiome-conferred functionalities associated with health. Such information will be vital for formulating therapeutic interventions aimed at managing microbiota-mediated health particularly in the GIT over the course of a human lifetime. © 2016 The Authors. Environmental Microbiology Reports published by Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Body lice of homeless people reveal the presence of several emerging bacterial pathogens in northern Algeria.

PubMed

Louni, Meriem; Mana, Nassima; Bitam, Idir; Dahmani, Mustapha; Parola, Philippe; Fenollar, Florence; Raoult, Didier; Mediannikov, Oleg

2018-04-01

Human lice, Pediculus humanus, are obligate blood-sucking parasites. Body lice, Pediculus h. humanus, occur in two divergent mitochondrial clades (A and D) each exhibiting a particular geographic distribution. Currently, the body louse is recognized as the only vector for louse-borne diseases. In this study, we aimed to study the genetic diversity of body lice collected from homeless populations in three localities of northern Algeria, and to investigate louse-borne pathogens in these lice. In this study, 524 body lice specimens were collected from 44 homeless people in three localities: Algiers, Tizi Ouzou and Boumerdès located in northern Algeria. Duplex clade specific real-time PCRs (qPCR) and Cytochrome b (cytb) mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis were performed in order to identify the mitochondrial clade. Screening of louse-borne pathogens bacteria was based on targeting specific genes for each pathogen using qPCR supplemented by sequencing. All body lice belong to clade A. Through amplification and sequencing of the cytb gene we confirmed the presence of three haplotypes: A5, A9 and A63, which is novel. The molecular investigation of the 524 body lice samples revealed the presence of four human pathogens: Bartonella quintana (13.35%), Coxiella burnetii (10.52%), Anaplasma phagocytophilum (0.76%) and Acinetobacter species (A. baumannii, A. johnsonii, A. berezeniae, A. nosocomialis and A. variabilis, in total 46.94%). To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to show the genetic diversity and presence of several emerging pathogenic bacteria in homeless' body lice from Algeria. We also report for the first time, the presence of several species of Acinetobacter in human body lice. Our results highlight the fact that body lice may be suspected as being a much broader vector of several pathogenic agents than previously thought. Nevertheless, other studies are needed to encourage epidemiological investigations and surveys of louse-associated infections.

Analyses of the Stability and Core Taxonomic Memberships of the Human Microbiome

PubMed Central

Li, Kelvin; Bihan, Monika; Methé, Barbara A.

2013-01-01

Analyses of the taxonomic diversity associated with the human microbiome continue to be an area of great importance. The study of the nature and extent of the commonly shared taxa (“core”), versus those less prevalent, establishes a baseline for comparing healthy and diseased groups by quantifying the variation among people, across body habitats and over time. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsored Human Microbiome Project (HMP) has provided an unprecedented opportunity to examine and better define what constitutes the taxonomic core within and across body habitats and individuals through pyrosequencing-based profiling of 16S rRNA gene sequences from oral, skin, distal gut (stool), and vaginal body habitats from over 200 healthy individuals. A two-parameter model is introduced to quantitatively identify the core taxonomic members of each body habitat’s microbiota across the healthy cohort. Using only cutoffs for taxonomic ubiquity and abundance, core taxonomic members were identified for each of the 18 body habitats and also for the 4 higher-level body regions. Although many microbes were shared at low abundance, they exhibited a relatively continuous spread in both their abundance and ubiquity, as opposed to a more discretized separation. The numbers of core taxa members in the body regions are comparatively small and stable, reflecting the relatively high, but conserved, interpersonal variability within the cohort. Core sizes increased across the body regions in the order of: vagina, skin, stool, and oral cavity. A number of “minor” oral taxonomic core were also identified by their majority presence across the cohort, but with relatively low and stable abundances. A method for quantifying the difference between two cohorts was introduced and applied to samples collected on a second visit, revealing that over time, the oral, skin, and stool body regions tended to be more transient in their taxonomic structure than the vaginal body region. PMID:23671663

Body lice of homeless people reveal the presence of several emerging bacterial pathogens in northern Algeria

PubMed Central

Louni, Meriem; Mana, Nassima; Bitam, Idir; Dahmani, Mustapha; Parola, Philippe; Fenollar, Florence; Raoult, Didier

2018-01-01

Background Human lice, Pediculus humanus, are obligate blood-sucking parasites. Body lice, Pediculus h. humanus, occur in two divergent mitochondrial clades (A and D) each exhibiting a particular geographic distribution. Currently, the body louse is recognized as the only vector for louse-borne diseases. In this study, we aimed to study the genetic diversity of body lice collected from homeless populations in three localities of northern Algeria, and to investigate louse-borne pathogens in these lice. Methodology/Principal findings In this study, 524 body lice specimens were collected from 44 homeless people in three localities: Algiers, Tizi Ouzou and Boumerdès located in northern Algeria. Duplex clade specific real-time PCRs (qPCR) and Cytochrome b (cytb) mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis were performed in order to identify the mitochondrial clade. Screening of louse-borne pathogens bacteria was based on targeting specific genes for each pathogen using qPCR supplemented by sequencing. All body lice belong to clade A. Through amplification and sequencing of the cytb gene we confirmed the presence of three haplotypes: A5, A9 and A63, which is novel. The molecular investigation of the 524 body lice samples revealed the presence of four human pathogens: Bartonella quintana (13.35%), Coxiella burnetii (10.52%), Anaplasma phagocytophilum (0.76%) and Acinetobacter species (A. baumannii, A. johnsonii, A. berezeniae, A. nosocomialis and A. variabilis, in total 46.94%). Conclusions/Significance To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to show the genetic diversity and presence of several emerging pathogenic bacteria in homeless’ body lice from Algeria. We also report for the first time, the presence of several species of Acinetobacter in human body lice. Our results highlight the fact that body lice may be suspected as being a much broader vector of several pathogenic agents than previously thought. Nevertheless, other studies are needed to encourage epidemiological investigations and surveys of louse-associated infections. PMID:29664950

The effect of age and body composition on body mass estimation of males using the stature/bi-iliac method.

PubMed

Junno, Juho-Antti; Niskanen, Markku; Maijanen, Heli; Holt, Brigitte; Sladek, Vladimir; Niinimäki, Sirpa; Berner, Margit

2018-02-01

The stature/bi-iliac breadth method provides reasonably precise, skeletal frame size (SFS) based body mass (BM) estimations across adults as a whole. In this study, we examine the potential effects of age changes in anthropometric dimensions on the estimation accuracy of SFS-based body mass estimation. We use anthropometric data from the literature and our own skeletal data from two osteological collections to study effects of age on stature, bi-iliac breadth, body mass, and body composition, as they are major components behind body size and body size estimations. We focus on males, as relevant longitudinal data are based on male study samples. As a general rule, lean body mass (LBM) increases through adolescence and early adulthood until people are aged in their 30s or 40s, and starts to decline in the late 40s or early 50s. Fat mass (FM) tends to increase until the mid-50s and declines thereafter, but in more mobile traditional societies it may decline throughout adult life. Because BM is the sum of LBM and FM, it exhibits a curvilinear age-related pattern in all societies. Skeletal frame size is based on stature and bi-iliac breadth, and both of those dimensions are affected by age. Skeletal frame size based body mass estimation tends to increase throughout adult life in both skeletal and anthropometric samples because an age-related increase in bi-iliac breadth more than compensates for an age-related stature decline commencing in the 30s or 40s. Combined with the above-mentioned curvilinear BM change, this results in curvilinear estimation bias. However, for simulations involving low to moderate percent body fat, the stature/bi-iliac method works well in predicting body mass in younger and middle-aged adults. Such conditions are likely to have applied to most human paleontological and archaeological samples. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Development, Evaluation, and Sensitivity Analysis of Parametric Finite Element Whole-Body Human Models in Side Impacts.

PubMed

Hwang, Eunjoo; Hu, Jingwen; Chen, Cong; Klein, Katelyn F; Miller, Carl S; Reed, Matthew P; Rupp, Jonathan D; Hallman, Jason J

2016-11-01

Occupant stature and body shape may have significant effects on injury risks in motor vehicle crashes, but the current finite element (FE) human body models (HBMs) only represent occupants with a few sizes and shapes. Our recent studies have demonstrated that, by using a mesh morphing method, parametric FE HBMs can be rapidly developed for representing a diverse population. However, the biofidelity of those models across a wide range of human attributes has not been established. Therefore, the objectives of this study are 1) to evaluate the accuracy of HBMs considering subject-specific geometry information, and 2) to apply the parametric HBMs in a sensitivity analysis for identifying the specific parameters affecting body responses in side impact conditions. Four side-impact tests with two male post-mortem human subjects (PMHSs) were selected to evaluate the accuracy of the geometry and impact responses of the morphed HBMs. For each PMHS test, three HBMs were simulated to compare with the test results: the original Total Human Model for Safety (THUMS) v4.01 (O-THUMS), a parametric THUMS (P-THUMS), and a subject-specific THUMS (S-THUMS). The P-THUMS geometry was predicted from only age, sex, stature, and BMI using our statistical geometry models of skeleton and body shape, while the S-THUMS geometry was based on each PMHS's CT data. The simulation results showed a preliminary trend that the correlations between the PTHUMS- predicted impact responses and the four PMHS tests (mean-CORA: 0.84, 0.78, 0.69, 0.70) were better than those between the O-THUMS and the normalized PMHS responses (mean-CORA: 0.74, 0.72, 0.55, 0.63), while they are similar to the correlations between S-THUMS and the PMHS tests (mean-CORA: 0.85, 0.85, 0.67, 0.72). The sensitivity analysis using the PTHUMS showed that, in side impact conditions, the HBM skeleton and body shape geometries as well as the body posture were more important in modeling the occupant impact responses than the bone and soft tissue material properties and the padding stiffness with the given parameter ranges. More investigations are needed to further support these findings.

Evaluation of a smartphone human activity recognition application with able-bodied and stroke participants.

PubMed

Capela, N A; Lemaire, E D; Baddour, N; Rudolf, M; Goljar, N; Burger, H

2016-01-20

Mobile health monitoring using wearable sensors is a growing area of interest. As the world's population ages and locomotor capabilities decrease, the ability to report on a person's mobility activities outside a hospital setting becomes a valuable tool for clinical decision-making and evaluating healthcare interventions. Smartphones are omnipresent in society and offer convenient and suitable sensors for mobility monitoring applications. To enhance our understanding of human activity recognition (HAR) system performance for able-bodied and populations with gait deviations, this research evaluated a custom smartphone-based HAR classifier on fifteen able-bodied participants and fifteen participants who suffered a stroke. Participants performed a consecutive series of mobility tasks and daily living activities while wearing a BlackBerry Z10 smartphone on their waist to collect accelerometer and gyroscope data. Five features were derived from the sensor data and used to classify participant activities (decision tree). Sensitivity, specificity and F-scores were calculated to evaluate HAR classifier performance. The classifier performed well for both populations when differentiating mobile from immobile states (F-score > 94 %). As activity recognition complexity increased, HAR system sensitivity and specificity decreased for the stroke population, particularly when using information derived from participant posture to make classification decisions. Human activity recognition using a smartphone based system can be accomplished for both able-bodied and stroke populations; however, an increase in activity classification complexity leads to a decrease in HAR performance with a stroke population. The study results can be used to guide smartphone HAR system development for populations with differing movement characteristics.

Modeling the drugs' passive transfer in the body based on their chromatographic behavior.

PubMed

Kouskoura, Maria G; Kachrimanis, Kyriakos G; Markopoulou, Catherine K

2014-11-01

One of the most challenging aims in modern analytical chemistry and pharmaceutical analysis is to create models for drugs' behavior based on simulation experiments. Since drugs' effects are closely related to their molecular properties, numerous characteristics of drugs are used in order to acquire a model of passive absorption and transfer in the human body. Importantly, such direction in innovative bioanalytical methodologies is also of stressful need in the area of personalized medicine to implement nanotechnological and genomics advancements. Simulation experiments were carried out by examining and interpreting the chromatographic behavior of 113 analytes/drugs (400 observations) in RP-HPLC. The dataset employed for this purpose included 73 descriptors which are referring to the physicochemical properties of the mobile phase mixture in different proportions, the physicochemical properties of the analytes and the structural characteristics of their molecules. A series of different software packages was used to calculate all the descriptors apart from those referring to the structure of analytes. The correlation of the descriptors with the retention time of the analytes eluted from a C4 column with an aqueous mobile phase was employed as dataset to introduce the behavior models in the human body. Their evaluation with a Partial Least Squares (PLS) software proved that the chromatographic behavior of a drug on a lipophilic stationary and a polar mobile phase is directly related to its drug-ability. At the same time, the behavior of an unknown drug in the human body can be predicted with reliability via the Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) software. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of multiple frequency bioelectrical impedance and Cole-Cole analysis for the assessment of body water volumes in healthy humans.

PubMed

Cornish, B H; Ward, L C; Thomas, B J; Jebb, S A; Elia, M

1996-03-01

To assess the application of a Cole-Cole analysis of multiple frequency bioelectrical impedance analysis (MFBIA) measurements to predict total body water (TBW) and extracellular water (ECW) in humans. This technique has previously been shown to produce accurate and reliable estimates in both normal and abnormal animals. The whole body impedance of 60 healthy humans was measured at 496 frequencies (ranging from 4 kHz to 1 MHz) and the impedance at zero frequency, Ro, and at the characteristic frequency, Zc, were determined from the impedance spectrum, (Cole-Cole plot). TBW and ECW were independently determined using deuterium and bromide tracer dilution techniques. At the Dunn Clinical Nutrition Centre and The Department of Biochemistry, University of Queensland. 60 healthy adult volunteers (27 men and 33 women, aged 18-45 years). The results presented suggest that the swept frequency bioimpedance technique estimates total body water, (SEE = 5.2%), and extracellular water, (SEE = 10%), only slightly better in normal, healthy subjects than a method based on single frequency bioimpedance or anthropometric estimates based on weight, height and gender. This study has undertaken the most extensive analysis to date of relationships between TBW (and ECW) and individual impedances obtained at different frequencies ( > 400 frequencies), and has shown marginal advantages of using one frequency over another, even if values predicted from theoretical bioimpedance models are used in the estimations. However in situations where there are disturbances of fluid distribution, values predicted from the Cole-Cole analysis of swept frequency bioimpedance measurements could prove to be more useful.

Multi-channel measurement for hetero-core optical fiber sensor by using CMOS camera

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koyama, Yuya; Nishiyama, Michiko; Watanabe, Kazuhiro

2015-07-01

Fiber optic smart structures have been developed over several decades by the recent fiber optic sensor technology. Optical intensity-based sensors, which use LD or LEDs, can be suitable for the monitor system to be simple and cost effective. In this paper, a novel fiber optic smart structure with human-like perception has been demonstrated by using intensity-based hetero-core optical fiber sensors system with the CMOS detector. The optical intensity from the hetero-core optical fiber bend sensor is obtained as luminance spots indicated by the optical power distributions. A number of optical intensity spots are simultaneously readout by taking a picture of luminance pattern. To recognize the state of fiber optic smart structure with the hetero-core optical fibers, the template matching process is employed with Sum of Absolute Differences (SAD). A fiber optic smart glove having five optic fiber nerves have been employed to monitor hand postures. Three kinds of hand postures have been recognized by means of the template matching process. A body posture monitoring has also been developed by placing the wearable hetero-core optical fiber bend sensors on the body segments. In order for the CMOS system to be a human brain-like, the luminescent spots in the obtained picture were arranged to make the pattern corresponding to the position of body segments. As a result, it was successfully demonstrated that the proposed fiber optic smart structure could recognize eight kinds of body postures. The developed system will give a capability of human brain-like processing to the existing fiber optic smart structures.

The Interplay Between Fiber and the Intestinal Microbiome in the Inflammatory Response12

PubMed Central

Kuo, Shiu-Ming

2013-01-01

Fiber intake is critical for optimal health. This review covers the anti-inflammatory roles of fibers using results from human epidemiological observations, clinical trials, and animal studies. Fiber has body weight–related anti-inflammatory activity. With its lower energy density, a diet high in fiber has been linked to lower body weight, alleviating obesity-induced chronic inflammation evidenced by reduced amounts of inflammatory markers in human and animal studies. Body weight–unrelated anti-inflammatory activity of fiber has also been extensively studied in animal models in which the type and amount of fiber intake can be closely monitored. Fermentable fructose-, glucose-, and galactose-based fibers as well as mixed fibers have shown systemic and local intestinal anti-inflammatory activities when plasma inflammatory markers and tissue inflammation were examined. Similar anti-inflammatory activities have also been demonstrated in some human studies that controlled total fiber intake. The anti-inflammatory activities of synbiotics (probiotics plus fiber) were reviewed as well, but there was no convincing evidence indicating higher efficacy of synbiotics compared with that of fiber alone. Adverse effects have not been observed with the amount of fiber intake or supplementation used in studies, although patients with Crohn’s disease may be more sensitive to inulin intake. Several possible mechanisms that may mediate the body weight–unrelated anti-inflammatory activity of fibers are discussed based on the in vitro and in vivo evidence. Fermentable fibers are known to affect the intestinal microbiome. The immunomodulatory role of the intestinal microbiome and/or microbial metabolites could contribute to the systemic and local anti-inflammatory activities of fibers. PMID:23319119

Double-path acquisition of pulse wave transit time and heartbeat using self-mixing interferometry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wei, Yingbin; Huang, Wencai; Wei, Zheng; Zhang, Jie; An, Tong; Wang, Xiulin; Xu, Huizhen

2017-06-01

We present a technique based on self-mixing interferometry for acquiring the pulse wave transit time (PWTT) and heartbeat. A signal processing method based on Continuous Wavelet Transform and Hilbert Transform is applied to extract potentially useful information in the self-mixing interference (SMI) signal, including PWTT and heartbeat. Then, some cardiovascular characteristics of the human body are easily acquired without retrieving the SMI signal by complicated algorithms. Experimentally, the PWTT is measured on the finger and the toe of the human body using double-path self-mixing interferometry. Experimental statistical data show the relation between the PWTT and blood pressure, which can be used to estimate the systolic pressure value by fitting. Moreover, the measured heartbeat shows good agreement with that obtained by a photoplethysmography sensor. The method that we demonstrate, which is based on self-mixing interferometry with significant advantages of simplicity, compactness and non-invasion, effectively illustrates the viability of the SMI technique for measuring other cardiovascular signals.

TOPICAL REVIEW: FPA-based infrared thermography as applied to the study of cutaneous perspiration and stimulated vascular response in humans

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vainer, Boris G.

2005-12-01

This review gives an overview of focal plane array (FPA)-based infrared (IR) thermography as a powerful research method in the field of physiology and medicine. Comparison of the gained results with the data previously obtained by other authors with other research tools is given. Outer thermoregulatory manifestations displayed by the human organism subjected to whole-body heating (sauna bath) and physical loads (exercise bicycling) are quantitatively analysed. Some details of human body emotional sweating (psycho-physiological effect) are reported. Particular attention is paid to studying active sweat glands as individual objects. All experimental data were obtained with the help of a high-sensitivity (0.03 °C) fast 128 × 128 InAs IR detector-based thermal imaging system operating in the short-wave spectral region (2.5 to 3 µm) and perfectly suiting medical purposes. It is shown that IR thermography makes it possible to overcome limitations inherent to contact measuring means that were traditionally used before in thermal studies. It is also shown that heterogeneous thermograms displayed by organisms with disturbed inner equilibrium can be quantitatively analysed in terms of statistical parameters of related surface-temperature histograms, such as the mean temperature and the standard deviation of temperature (SDT). The increase and the decrease in SDT turned out to be typical of prolonged physical load and subsequent relaxation, and of external whole-body heating, respectively. Explanation of this result based on a hypothesis advanced within the context of the doctrine of human-organism evolution is given. Skin-temperature distribution function accompanying the relaxed organism in normality was found to closely resemble normal-distribution function. Symmetry break down and variation of the shape of this characteristic may serve as an indicator of homeostasis shift and can be used as a quantitative criterion for the latter. A new phenomenon, stable punctate hidrosis, is discovered and described. The term sweatology is introduced to refer to the discussed specific research area in biomedical science.

FPA-based infrared thermography as applied to the study of cutaneous perspiration and stimulated vascular response in humans.

PubMed

Vainer, Boris G

2005-12-07

This review gives an overview of focal plane array (FPA)-based infrared (IR) thermography as a powerful research method in the field of physiology and medicine. Comparison of the gained results with the data previously obtained by other authors with other research tools is given. Outer thermoregulatory manifestations displayed by the human organism subjected to whole-body heating (sauna bath) and physical loads (exercise bicycling) are quantitatively analysed. Some details of human body emotional sweating (psycho-physiological effect) are reported. Particular attention is paid to studying active sweat glands as individual objects. All experimental data were obtained with the help of a high-sensitivity (0.03 degrees C) fast 128 x 128 InAs IR detector-based thermal imaging system operating in the short-wave spectral region (2.5 to 3 microm) and perfectly suiting medical purposes. It is shown that IR thermography makes it possible to overcome limitations inherent to contact measuring means that were traditionally used before in thermal studies. It is also shown that heterogeneous thermograms displayed by organisms with disturbed inner equilibrium can be quantitatively analysed in terms of statistical parameters of related surface-temperature histograms, such as the mean temperature and the standard deviation of temperature (SDT). The increase and the decrease in SDT turned out to be typical of prolonged physical load and subsequent relaxation, and of external whole-body heating, respectively. Explanation of this result based on a hypothesis advanced within the context of the doctrine of human-organism evolution is given. Skin-temperature distribution function accompanying the relaxed organism in normality was found to closely resemble normal-distribution function. Symmetry break down and variation of the shape of this characteristic may serve as an indicator of homeostasis shift and can be used as a quantitative criterion for the latter. A new phenomenon, stable punctate hidrosis, is discovered and described. The term sweatology is introduced to refer to the discussed specific research area in biomedical science.

Development of magnesium-based biodegradable metals with dietary trace element germanium as orthopaedic implant applications.

PubMed

Bian, Dong; Zhou, Weirui; Deng, Jiuxu; Liu, Yang; Li, Wenting; Chu, Xiao; Xiu, Peng; Cai, Hong; Kou, Yuhui; Jiang, Baoguo; Zheng, Yufeng

2017-12-01

From the perspective of element biosafety and dietetics, the ideal alloying elements for magnesium should be those which are essential to or naturally presented in human body. Element germanium is a unique metalloid in the carbon group, chemically similar to its group neighbors, Si and Sn. It is a dietary trace element that naturally presents in human body. Physiological role of Ge is still unanswered, but it might be necessary to ensure normal functioning of the body. In present study, novel magnesium alloys with dietary trace element Ge were developed. Feasibility of those alloys to be used as orthopaedic implant applications was systematically evaluated. Mg-Ge alloys consisted of α-Mg matrix and eutectic phases (α-Mg + Mg 2 Ge). Mechanical properties of Mg-Ge alloys were comparable to current Mg-Ca, Mg-Zn and Mg-Sr biodegradable metals. As-rolled Mg-3Ge alloy exhibited outstanding corrosion resistance in vitro (0.02 mm/y, electrochemical) with decent corrosion rate in vivo (0.6 mm/y, in rabbit tibia). New bone could directly lay down onto the implant and grew along its surface. After 3 months, bone and implant were closely integrated, indicating well osseointegration being obtained. Generally, this is a pioneering study on the in vitro and in vivo performances of novel Mg-Ge based biodegradable metals, and will benefit the future development of this alloy system. The ideal alloying elements for magnesium-based biodegradable metals should be those which are essential to or naturally presented in human body. Element germanium is a unique metalloid in the carbon group. It is a dietary trace element that naturally presents in human body. In present study, feasibility of Mg-Ge alloys to be utilized as orthopedic applications was systematically investigated, mainly focusing on the microstructure, mechanical property, corrosion behavior and biocompatibility. Our findings showed that Mg-3Ge alloy exhibited superior corrosion resistance to current Mg-Ca, Mg-Zn and Mg-Sr alloys with favorable biocompatibility. This is a pioneering study on the in vitro &in vivo performances of Mg-Ge biodegradable metals, and will benefit the future development of this alloy system. Copyright © 2017 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The cooperative economy of food: Implications for human life history and physiology.

PubMed

Kramer, Karen L

2018-04-06

The human diet has undergone substantial modifications since the emergence of modern humans and varies considerably in today's traditional societies. Despite these changes and cross-cultural differences, the human diet can be characterized by several common elements. These include diverse, high quality foods, technological complexity to acquire and process food, and the establishment of home bases for storage, processing and consumption. Together these aspects of the human diet challenge any one individual to independently meet all of his or her daily caloric needs. Humans solve this challenge through food sharing, labor exchange and the division of labor. The cooperative nature of the human diet is associated with many downstream effects on our life history and physiology. This paper overviews the constellation of traits that likely led to a cooperative economy of food, and draws on ethnographic examples to illustrate its effects on human life history and physiology. Two detailed examples using body composition, time allocation and food acquisition data show how cooperation among Savanna Pumé hunter-gatherers affects activity levels, sexual dimorphism in body fat, maturational pace and age at first birth. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Embodying animals: Body-part compatibility in mammalian, reptile and aves classes.

PubMed

Pacione, Sandra M; Welsh, Timothy N

2015-09-01

The purpose of the present study was to determine how humans code homologous body parts of nonhuman mammal, reptilian, and aves animals with respect to the representation of the human body. To this end, participants completed body-part compatibility tasks in which responses were executed to colored targets that were superimposed over the upper limbs, lower limbs or head of different animals in different postures. In Experiment 1, the images were of meekats and lizards in bipedal and quadrupedal postures. In Experiment 2, the images were of a human, a penguin, and an owl in a bipedal posture with upper limbs stretched out. Overall, the results revealed that the limbs of nonhuman mammals (meerkat and human) were consistently mapped onto the homologous human body parts only when the mammals were in a bipedal posture. Specifically, body-part compatibility effects emerged for the human and the meerkat in a bipedal posture, but not the meerkat in the quadrupedal posture. Further, consistent body-part compatibility effects were not observed for the lizard in the quadrupedal posture or for the lizard, penguin, or owl in a bipedal posture. The pattern of results suggests that the human bipedal body representation may distinguish taxonomical classes and is most highly engaged when viewing homologous body parts of mammalian animals. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Chemicals identified in human biological media: a data base. Third annual report, October 1981

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cone, M.V.; Baldauf, M.F.; Martin, F.M.

Data from almost 1600 of the 3800 body-burden documents collected to date have been entered in the data base as of October 1981. The emphasis on including recent literature and significant research documents has resulted in a chronological mix of articles from 1974 to the present. When body-burden articles are identified, data are extracted and entered in the data base by chemical and tissue/body fluid. Each data entry comprises a single record (or line entry) and is assigned a record number. If a particular document deals with more than one chemical and/or tissue, there will be multiple records for thatmore » document. For example, a study of 5 chemicals in each of 3 tissues has 15 different records (or 15 line entries) in the data base with 15 record numbers. Record numbers are assigned consecutively throughout the entire data base and appear in the upper left corner of the first column for each record.« less

[Measurement of human body fat by means of gravimetry. Application of Archimedes' principle].

PubMed

Dettwiler, W; Ribordy, M; Donath, A; Scherrer, J R

1978-12-02

The weighing of the human body under water is an application of Archimedes' law. Fat being lighter than water or than the structures of lean body mass, body fat can be measured by determining the specific gravity of the human body; that is, by underwater weighing. Body fat has been determined in an "ideal" sample of 14 men and 23 women, all aged 20 years. Testing against a reference measure of body fat makes it possible to test the validity of some anthropometric measurements and of some indices of obesity. These indices offer no advantages over anthropometric measurements.

Topographical distribution and morphology of NADPH-diaphorase-stained neurons in the human claustrum

PubMed Central

Hinova-Palova, Dimka V.; Edelstein, Lawrence; Landzhov, Boycho; Minkov, Minko; Malinova, Lina; Hristov, Stanislav; Denaro, Frank J.; Alexandrov, Alexandar; Kiriakova, Teodora; Brainova, Ilina; Paloff, Adrian; Ovtscharoff, Wladimir

2014-01-01

We studied the topographical distribution and morphological characteristics of NADPH-diaphorase-positive neurons and fibers in the human claustrum. These neurons were seen to be heterogeneously distributed throughout the claustrum. Taking into account the size and shape of stained perikarya as well as dendritic and axonal characteristics, Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate-diaphorase (NADPHd)-positive neurons were categorized by diameter into three types: large, medium and small. Large neurons ranged from 25 to 35 μm in diameter and typically displayed elliptical or multipolar cell bodies. Medium neurons ranged from 20 to 25 μm in diameter and displayed multipolar, bipolar and irregular cell bodies. Small neurons ranged from 14 to 20 μm in diameter and most often displayed oval or elliptical cell bodies. Based on dendritic characteristics, these neurons were divided into spiny and aspiny subtypes. Our findings reveal two populations of NADPHd-positive neurons in the human claustrum—one comprised of large and medium cells consistent with a projection neuron phenotype, the other represented by small cells resembling the interneuron phenotype as defined by previous Golgi impregnation studies. PMID:24904317

Identification of capacitive MEMS accelerometer structure parameters for human body dynamics measurements.

PubMed

Benevicius, Vincas; Ostasevicius, Vytautas; Gaidys, Rimvydas

2013-08-22

Due to their small size, low weight, low cost and low energy consumption, MEMS accelerometers have achieved great commercial success in recent decades. The aim of this research work is to identify a MEMS accelerometer structure for human body dynamics measurements. Photogrammetry was used in order to measure possible maximum accelerations of human body parts and the bandwidth of the digital acceleration signal. As the primary structure the capacitive accelerometer configuration is chosen in such a way that sensing part measures on all three axes as it is 3D accelerometer and sensitivity on each axis is equal. Hill climbing optimization was used to find the structure parameters. Proof-mass displacements were simulated for all the acceleration range that was given by the optimization problem constraints. The final model was constructed in Comsol Multiphysics. Eigenfrequencies were calculated and model's response was found, when vibration stand displacement data was fed into the model as the base excitation law. Model output comparison with experimental data was conducted for all excitation frequencies used during the experiments.

Analysis of the influence location of the fiber optic sensor on the measurement and determination the heart rate of the human body

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nedoma, Jan; Fajkus, Marcel; Martinek, Radek; Cubik, Jakub; Kepak, Stanislav; Vanus, Jan; Zboril, Ondrej; Vasinek, Vladimir

2017-10-01

Authors of this article focused on the analysis of the influence location of the fiber-optic sensor on the measurement and determination the heart rate of the human body. The sensor uses a Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) and is encapsulated in the polymer polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The combination of fiber-optic technology and its encapsulation in a polymer PDMS allows the use of the sensor e.g. in magnetic resonance environments (MRI). Among currently solved doctors requirements belongs field focusing on the study of hyperventilation and panic attacks of patients during MRI examination due to their very frequent occurrence. Proposed FBG sensor can help doctors to predict (based on heart rate) hyperventilation and panic attacks of patients during MRI examinations. For the most accurate determination of the heart rate, it is necessary to know the influence location of the sensor on the human body. The sensor functionality and analysis of the sensor placement on the heart rate has been verified by a series of real experimental measurements of test subjects in laboratory environment.

Isomap transform for segmenting human body shapes.

PubMed

Cerveri, P; Sarro, K J; Marchente, M; Barros, R M L

2011-09-01

Segmentation of the 3D human body is a very challenging problem in applications exploiting volume capture data. Direct clustering in the Euclidean space is usually complex or even unsolvable. This paper presents an original method based on the Isomap (isometric feature mapping) transform of the volume data-set. The 3D articulated posture is mapped by Isomap in the pose of Da Vinci's Vitruvian man. The limbs are unrolled from each other and separated from the trunk and pelvis, and the topology of the human body shape is recovered. In such a configuration, Hoshen-Kopelman clustering applied to concentric spherical shells is used to automatically group points into the labelled principal curves. Shepard interpolation is utilised to back-map points of the principal curves into the original volume space. The experimental results performed on many different postures have proved the validity of the proposed method. Reliability of less than 2 cm and 3° in the location of the joint centres and direction axes of rotations has been obtained, respectively, which qualifies this procedure as a potential tool for markerless motion analysis.

Investigation of in-body path loss in different human subjects for localization of capsule endoscope.

PubMed

Ara, Perzila; Cheng, Shaokoon; Heimlich, Michael; Dutkiewicz, Eryk

2015-01-01

Recent developments in capsule endoscopy have highlighted the need for accurate techniques to estimate the location of a capsule endoscope. A highly accurate location estimation of a capsule endoscope in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract in the range of several millimeters is a challenging task. This is mainly because the radio-frequency signals encounter high loss and a highly dynamic channel propagation environment. Therefore, an accurate path-loss model is required for the development of accurate localization algorithms. This paper presents an in-body path-loss model for the human abdomen region at 2.4 GHz frequency. To develop the path-loss model, electromagnetic simulations using the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method were carried out on two different anatomical human models. A mathematical expression for the path-loss model was proposed based on analysis of the measured loss at different capsule locations inside the small intestine. The proposed path-loss model is a good approximation to model in-body RF propagation, since the real measurements are quite infeasible for the capsule endoscopy subject.

Detection and location of metal fragments in the human body

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Brown, R. L.; Neuschaefer, R. W.

1970-01-01

Portable electronic device, based on the design of an eddy current gage, detects ferrous and nonferrous metal fragments. Device is more easily transported than X-ray equipment and does not present a radiation hazard.

Using frequency analysis to improve the precision of human body posture algorithms based on Kalman filters.

PubMed

Olivares, Alberto; Górriz, J M; Ramírez, J; Olivares, G

2016-05-01

With the advent of miniaturized inertial sensors many systems have been developed within the last decade to study and analyze human motion and posture, specially in the medical field. Data measured by the sensors are usually processed by algorithms based on Kalman Filters in order to estimate the orientation of the body parts under study. These filters traditionally include fixed parameters, such as the process and observation noise variances, whose value has large influence in the overall performance. It has been demonstrated that the optimal value of these parameters differs considerably for different motion intensities. Therefore, in this work, we show that, by applying frequency analysis to determine motion intensity, and varying the formerly fixed parameters accordingly, the overall precision of orientation estimation algorithms can be improved, therefore providing physicians with reliable objective data they can use in their daily practice. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Gender Recognition from Human-Body Images Using Visible-Light and Thermal Camera Videos Based on a Convolutional Neural Network for Image Feature Extraction

PubMed Central

Nguyen, Dat Tien; Kim, Ki Wan; Hong, Hyung Gil; Koo, Ja Hyung; Kim, Min Cheol; Park, Kang Ryoung

2017-01-01

Extracting powerful image features plays an important role in computer vision systems. Many methods have previously been proposed to extract image features for various computer vision applications, such as the scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT), speed-up robust feature (SURF), local binary patterns (LBP), histogram of oriented gradients (HOG), and weighted HOG. Recently, the convolutional neural network (CNN) method for image feature extraction and classification in computer vision has been used in various applications. In this research, we propose a new gender recognition method for recognizing males and females in observation scenes of surveillance systems based on feature extraction from visible-light and thermal camera videos through CNN. Experimental results confirm the superiority of our proposed method over state-of-the-art recognition methods for the gender recognition problem using human body images. PMID:28335510

Gender Recognition from Human-Body Images Using Visible-Light and Thermal Camera Videos Based on a Convolutional Neural Network for Image Feature Extraction.

PubMed

Nguyen, Dat Tien; Kim, Ki Wan; Hong, Hyung Gil; Koo, Ja Hyung; Kim, Min Cheol; Park, Kang Ryoung

2017-03-20

Extracting powerful image features plays an important role in computer vision systems. Many methods have previously been proposed to extract image features for various computer vision applications, such as the scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT), speed-up robust feature (SURF), local binary patterns (LBP), histogram of oriented gradients (HOG), and weighted HOG. Recently, the convolutional neural network (CNN) method for image feature extraction and classification in computer vision has been used in various applications. In this research, we propose a new gender recognition method for recognizing males and females in observation scenes of surveillance systems based on feature extraction from visible-light and thermal camera videos through CNN. Experimental results confirm the superiority of our proposed method over state-of-the-art recognition methods for the gender recognition problem using human body images.

Brazilian legal and bioethical approach about donation for research and patents of human body parts.

PubMed

Fernandes, Márcia Santana; Silla, Lúcia; Goldim, José Roberto; Martins-Costa, Judith

2017-07-01

The aim of this paper is to explain why the Brazilian legal system does not accept commercialization or commodification of human body parts, including genes or cells. As a consequence, in Brazil, the donation of human body parts for research-including basic or translational-must be made altruistically. For the same reason, the Brazilian patent system cannot be applied to human parts, cells or genes. Here, we present a qualitative analysis of juridical, bioethical, and social reasoning related to the legal status of human body parts especially in biobanks, as well as a description of the Brazilian legal system for clarification. Our aim is to discuss the responsibility of researchers for making available the scientific information resulting from scientific research and biobank storage of human body parts and to ensure the free utilization of knowledge in human health research.

Learning dictionaries of sparse codes of 3D movements of body joints for real-time human activity understanding.

PubMed

Qi, Jin; Yang, Zhiyong

2014-01-01

Real-time human activity recognition is essential for human-robot interactions for assisted healthy independent living. Most previous work in this area is performed on traditional two-dimensional (2D) videos and both global and local methods have been used. Since 2D videos are sensitive to changes of lighting condition, view angle, and scale, researchers begun to explore applications of 3D information in human activity understanding in recently years. Unfortunately, features that work well on 2D videos usually don't perform well on 3D videos and there is no consensus on what 3D features should be used. Here we propose a model of human activity recognition based on 3D movements of body joints. Our method has three steps, learning dictionaries of sparse codes of 3D movements of joints, sparse coding, and classification. In the first step, space-time volumes of 3D movements of body joints are obtained via dense sampling and independent component analysis is then performed to construct a dictionary of sparse codes for each activity. In the second step, the space-time volumes are projected to the dictionaries and a set of sparse histograms of the projection coefficients are constructed as feature representations of the activities. Finally, the sparse histograms are used as inputs to a support vector machine to recognize human activities. We tested this model on three databases of human activities and found that it outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms. Thus, this model can be used for real-time human activity recognition in many applications.

Characterization and visual illustration of the consequences motion of human body for the determination of heart rate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nedoma, Jan; Fajkus, Marcel; Martinek, Radek; Kepak, Stanislav; Cubik, Jakub; Vasinek, Vladimir

2017-10-01

The team of authors focused on analyzing of using fiber-optic sensor based on Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) for the monitoring of heart rate (HR) of long-term ill patients with a minimum of physical movement load. During all experiments, test subjects were asked to simulate their natural behavior in the most accurate way (for instance, the focus was on the use of fine motor skills - not only movements of hands and arms, legs, and feet, coughing, changes in body positions, but also walking). All these external aspects are taken into account in the bellow-described results of the probe efficiency and show that it is very necessary to know the impact of these artifacts for the determine the heart rate of the human body. Final results were discussed with the senior doctor of the long-term care department.

Molecular physiology of weight regulation in mice and humans

PubMed Central

Leibel, RL

2009-01-01

Evolutionary considerations relating to efficiency in reproduction, and survival in hostile environments, suggest that body energy stores are sensed and actively regulated, with stronger physiological and behavioral responses to loss than gain of stored energy. Many physiological studies support this inference, and suggest that a critical axis runs between body fat and the hypothalamus. The molecular cloning of leptin and its receptor—projects based explicitly on the search for elements in this axis—confirmed the existence of this axis and provided important tools with which to understand its molecular physiology. Demonstration of the importance of this soma-brain reciprocal connection in body weight regulation in humans has been pursued using both classical genetic approaches and studies of physiological responses to experimental weight perturbation. This paper reviews the history of the rationale and methodology of the cloning of leptin (Lep) and the leptin receptor (Lepr), and describes some of the clinical investigation characterizing this axis. PMID:19136999

Parametric Human Body Reconstruction Based on Sparse Key Points.

PubMed

Cheng, Ke-Li; Tong, Ruo-Feng; Tang, Min; Qian, Jing-Ye; Sarkis, Michel

2016-11-01

We propose an automatic parametric human body reconstruction algorithm which can efficiently construct a model using a single Kinect sensor. A user needs to stand still in front of the sensor for a couple of seconds to measure the range data. The user's body shape and pose will then be automatically constructed in several seconds. Traditional methods optimize dense correspondences between range data and meshes. In contrast, our proposed scheme relies on sparse key points for the reconstruction. It employs regression to find the corresponding key points between the scanned range data and some annotated training data. We design two kinds of feature descriptors as well as corresponding regression stages to make the regression robust and accurate. Our scheme follows with dense refinement where a pre-factorization method is applied to improve the computational efficiency. Compared with other methods, our scheme achieves similar reconstruction accuracy but significantly reduces runtime.

Combining Watershed Variables with PCR-based Methods for Better Characterization and Management of Fecal Pollution in Small Streams

EPA Science Inventory

Ability to distinguish between human and animal fecal pollution is important for risk assessment and watershed management, particularly in bodies of water used as sources of drinking water or for recreation. PCR-based methods were used to determine the source of fecal pollution ...

A Kinect-Based Assessment System for Smart Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kumara, W. G. C. W.; Wattanachote, Kanoksak; Battulga, Batbaatar; Shih, Timothy K.; Hwang, Wu-Yuin

2015-01-01

With the advancements of the human computer interaction field, nowadays it is possible for the users to use their body motions, such as swiping, pushing and moving, to interact with the content of computers or smart phones without traditional input devices like mouse and keyboard. With the introduction of gesture-based interface Kinect from…

Getting Back to Basics (& Acidics)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rhodes, Sam

2006-01-01

This article describes a few novel acid-base experiments intended to introduce students to the basic concepts of acid-base chemistry and provide practical examples that apply directly to the study of biology and the human body. Important concepts such as the reaction between carbon dioxide and water, buffers and protein denaturation, are covered.…

The ownership of human body: an islamic perspective.

PubMed

Aramesh, Kiarash

2009-01-01

Using human dead body for medical purposes is a common practice in medical schools and hospitals throughout the world. Iran, as an Islamic country is not an exception. According to the Islamic view, the body, like the soul, is a "gift" from God; therefore, human being does not possess absolute ownership on his or her body. But, the ownership of human beings on their bodies can be described as a kind of "stewardship". Accordingly, any kind of dissection or mutilation of the corpse is forbidden, even with the informed consent of the dead or his/her relatives. The exception of this principle is when such procedures are necessary for saving lives of other persons. In this article using the human dead body for medical education, research and treatment is discussed and the perspective of Iranian Shiite religious scholars in this regard is explained.

In vivo assessment of magnesium status in human body using accelerator-based neutron activation measurement of hands: a pilot study.

PubMed

Aslam; Pejović-Milić, A; McNeill, F E; Byun, S H; Prestwich, W V; Chettle, D R

2008-02-01

Magnesium (Mg) is an element essential for many enzymatic reactions in the human body. Various human and animal studies suggest that changes in Mg status are linked to diseases such as cardiac arrhythmia, coronary heart disease, hypertension, premenstrual syndrome, and diabetes mellitus. Thus, knowledge of Mg levels in the human body is needed. A direct measurement of human blood serum, which contains only 0.3% of the total body Mg, is generally used to infer information about the status of Mg in the body. However, in many clinical situations, Mg stored in large levels, for example in bones, muscles, and soft tissues, needs to be monitored either to evaluate the efficacy of a treatment or to study the progression of diseases associated with the deficiency of total body Mg. This work presents a feasibility study of a noninvasive, in vivo neutron activation analysis (IVNAA) technique using the 26Mg (n, gamma) 27Mg reaction to measure Mg levels in human hands. The technique employs the McMaster University high beam current Tandetron accelerator hand irradiation facility and an array of eight NaI (T1) detectors arranged in a 4 pi geometry for delayed counting of the 0.844 and 1.014 MeV gamma rays emitted when 27Mg decays in the irradiated hand. Mg determination in humans using IVNAA of hands has been demonstrated to be feasible, with effective doses as low as one-quarter of those delivered in chest x rays. The overall experimental uncertainty in the measurements is estimated to be approximately 5% (1 sigma). The results are found to be in the range of the in vitro measurements reported for other cortical bones collected from different sites of the human skeleton, which confirms that this technique mainly provides a measure of the amount of Mg in hand bones. The average concentration of Mg determined in human hands is 10.96 +/- 1.25 (+/- 1 SD) mg Mg/g Ca. The coefficient of variation (11%) observed in this study is comparable with or lower than several studies using in vitro measurements reported in the literature and therefore allows for a quantitative intersubject comparison, even if to a limited extent. The features of the developed technique such as its simplicity, rapidity, accuracy, robustness, noninvasive nature, and very effective use of radiation doses, present the technique as a viable diagnostic tool available for trial in a clinical environment.

Endocytosis and exocytosis of nanoparticles in mammalian cells

PubMed Central

Oh, Nuri; Park, Ji-Ho

2014-01-01

Engineered nanoparticles that can be injected into the human body hold tremendous potential to detect and treat complex diseases. Understanding of the endocytosis and exocytosis mechanisms of nanoparticles is essential for safe and efficient therapeutic application. In particular, exocytosis is of significance in the removal of nanoparticles with drugs and contrast agents from the body, while endocytosis is of great importance for the targeting of nanoparticles in disease sites. Here, we review the recent research on the endocytosis and exocytosis of functionalized nanoparticles based on various sizes, shapes, and surface chemistries. We believe that this review contributes to the design of safe nanoparticles that can efficiently enter and leave human cells and tissues. PMID:24872703

A microcomputer-based whole-body counter for personnel routine monitoring.

PubMed

Chou, H P; Tsai, T M; Lan, C Y

1993-05-01

The paper describes a cost-effective NaI(Tl) whole-body counter developed for routine examinations of worker intakes at an isotope production facility. Signal processing, data analysis and system operation are microcomputer-controlled for minimum human interactions. The pulse height analyzer is developed as an microcomputer add-on card for easy manipulation. The scheme for radionuclide analysis is aimed for fast running according to a knowledge base established from background samples and phantom experiments in conjunction with a multivariate regression analysis. Long-term stability and calibration with standards and in vivo measurements are reported.

Validation of a robotic balance system for investigations in the control of human standing balance.

PubMed

Luu, Billy L; Huryn, Thomas P; Van der Loos, H F Machiel; Croft, Elizabeth A; Blouin, Jean-Sébastien

2011-08-01

Previous studies have shown that human body sway during standing approximates the mechanics of an inverted pendulum pivoted at the ankle joints. In this study, a robotic balance system incorporating a Stewart platform base was developed to provide a new technique to investigate the neural mechanisms involved in standing balance. The robotic system, programmed with the mechanics of an inverted pendulum, controlled the motion of the body in response to a change in applied ankle torque. The ability of the robotic system to replicate the load properties of standing was validated by comparing the load stiffness generated when subjects balanced their own body to the robot's mechanical load programmed with a low (concentrated-mass model) or high (distributed-mass model) inertia. The results show that static load stiffness was not significantly (p > 0.05) different for standing and the robotic system. Dynamic load stiffness for the robotic system increased with the frequency of sway, as predicted by the mechanics of an inverted pendulum, with the higher inertia being accurately matched to the load properties of the human body. This robotic balance system accurately replicated the physical model of standing and represents a useful tool to simulate the dynamics of a standing person. © 2011 IEEE

Unobstructive Body Area Networks (BAN) for Efficient Movement Monitoring

PubMed Central

Felisberto, Filipe; Costa, Nuno; Fdez-Riverola, Florentino; Pereira, António

2012-01-01

The technological advances in medical sensors, low-power microelectronics and miniaturization, wireless communications and networks have enabled the appearance of a new generation of wireless sensor networks: the so-called wireless body area networks (WBAN). These networks can be used for continuous monitoring of vital parameters, movement, and the surrounding environment. The data gathered by these networks contributes to improve users' quality of life and allows the creation of a knowledge database by using learning techniques, useful to infer abnormal behaviour. In this paper we present a wireless body area network architecture to recognize human movement, identify human postures and detect harmful activities in order to prevent risk situations. The WBAN was created using tiny, cheap and low-power nodes with inertial and physiological sensors, strategically placed on the human body. Doing so, in an as ubiquitous as possible way, ensures that its impact on the users' daily actions is minimum. The information collected by these sensors is transmitted to a central server capable of analysing and processing their data. The proposed system creates movement profiles based on the data sent by the WBAN's nodes, and is able to detect in real time any abnormal movement and allows for a monitored rehabilitation of the user. PMID:23112726

Development of Chinese reference man deformable surface phantom and its application to the influence of physique on electromagnetic dosimetry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yu, D.; Wang, M.; Liu, Q.

2015-09-01

A reference man is a theoretical individual that represents the average anatomical structure and physiological and metabolic features of a specific group of people and has been widely used in radiation safety research. With the help of an advantage in deformation, the present work proposed a Chinese reference man adult-male polygon-mesh surface phantom based on the Visible Chinese Human segment image dataset by surface rendering and deforming. To investigate the influence of physique on electromagnetic dosimetry in humans, a series of human phantoms with 10th, 50th and 90th body mass index and body circumference percentile physiques for Chinese adult males were further constructed by deforming the Chinese reference man surface phantom. All the surface phantoms were then voxelized to perform electromagnetic field simulation in a frequency range of 20 MHz to 3 GHz using the finite-difference time-domain method and evaluate the whole-body average and organ average specific absorption rate and the ratios of absorbed energy in skin, fat and muscle to the whole body. The results indicate thinner physique leads to higher WBSAR and the volume of subcutaneous fat, the penetration depth of the electromagnetic field in tissues and standing-wave occurrence may be the influence factors of physique on electromagnetic dosimetry.

Whole-body biodistribution and estimation of radiation-absorbed doses of the dopamine D1 receptor radioligand 11C-NNC 112 in humans.

PubMed

Cropley, Vanessa L; Fujita, Masahiro; Musachio, John L; Hong, Jinsoo; Ghose, Subroto; Sangare, Janet; Nathan, Pradeep J; Pike, Victor W; Innis, Robert B

2006-01-01

The present study estimated radiation-absorbed doses of the dopamine D(1) receptor radioligand [(11)C]((+)-8-chloro-5-(7-benzofuranyl)-7-hydroxy-3-methyl-2,3,4,5-tetrahydro-1H-3-benzazepine) (NNC 112) in humans, based on dynamic whole-body PET in healthy subjects. Whole-body PET was performed on 7 subjects after injection of 710 +/- 85 MBq of (11)C-NNC 112. Fourteen frames were acquired for a total of 120 min in 7 segments of the body. Regions of interest were drawn on compressed planar images of source organs that could be identified. Radiation dose estimates were calculated from organ residence times using the OLINDA 1.0 program. The organs with the highest radiation-absorbed doses were the gallbladder, liver, lungs, kidneys, and urinary bladder wall. Biexponential fitting of mean bladder activity demonstrated that 15% of activity was excreted via the urine. With a 2.4-h voiding interval, the effective dose was 5.7 microSv/MBq (21.1 mrem/mCi). (11)C-NNC 112 displays a favorable radiation dose profile in humans and would allow multiple PET examinations per year to be performed on the same subject.

A multivariate distance-based analytic framework for microbial interdependence association test in longitudinal study.

PubMed

Zhang, Yilong; Han, Sung Won; Cox, Laura M; Li, Huilin

2017-12-01

Human microbiome is the collection of microbes living in and on the various parts of our body. The microbes living on our body in nature do not live alone. They act as integrated microbial community with massive competing and cooperating and contribute to our human health in a very important way. Most current analyses focus on examining microbial differences at a single time point, which do not adequately capture the dynamic nature of the microbiome data. With the advent of high-throughput sequencing and analytical tools, we are able to probe the interdependent relationship among microbial species through longitudinal study. Here, we propose a multivariate distance-based test to evaluate the association between key phenotypic variables and microbial interdependence utilizing the repeatedly measured microbiome data. Extensive simulations were performed to evaluate the validity and efficiency of the proposed method. We also demonstrate the utility of the proposed test using a well-designed longitudinal murine experiment and a longitudinal human study. The proposed methodology has been implemented in the freely distributed open-source R package and Python code. © 2017 WILEY PERIODICALS, INC.

EMG and EPP-integrated human-machine interface between the paralyzed and rehabilitation exoskeleton.

PubMed

Yin, Yue H; Fan, Yuan J; Xu, Li D

2012-07-01

Although a lower extremity exoskeleton shows great prospect in the rehabilitation of the lower limb, it has not yet been widely applied to the clinical rehabilitation of the paralyzed. This is partly caused by insufficient information interactions between the paralyzed and existing exoskeleton that cannot meet the requirements of harmonious control. In this research, a bidirectional human-machine interface including a neurofuzzy controller and an extended physiological proprioception (EPP) feedback system is developed by imitating the biological closed-loop control system of human body. The neurofuzzy controller is built to decode human motion in advance by the fusion of the fuzzy electromyographic signals reflecting human motion intention and the precise proprioception providing joint angular feedback information. It transmits control information from human to exoskeleton, while the EPP feedback system based on haptic stimuli transmits motion information of the exoskeleton back to the human. Joint angle and torque information are transmitted in the form of air pressure to the human body. The real-time bidirectional human-machine interface can help a patient with lower limb paralysis to control the exoskeleton with his/her healthy side and simultaneously perceive motion on the paralyzed side by EPP. The interface rebuilds a closed-loop motion control system for paralyzed patients and realizes harmonious control of the human-machine system.

78 FR 54731 - Update to the List of Basic Medical Supplies

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-09-05

... Suture removal kits Syringes Thermometers, mercury for measuring human body temperature Tongue depressors... equipment Orthopedic traction devices and tables Human body positioners including pads, wedges, cradles... staples; and removal kits Tourniquets Thermometers for measuring human body temperature Clinical basins...

36 CFR 1002.14 - Sanitation and refuse.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... areas, the disposal of human body waste, except at designated locations or in fixtures provided for that purpose. (9) In nondeveloped areas, the disposal of human body waste within 100 feet of a water source... human body waste. Violation of these conditions is prohibited. ...

36 CFR 1002.14 - Sanitation and refuse.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... areas, the disposal of human body waste, except at designated locations or in fixtures provided for that purpose. (9) In nondeveloped areas, the disposal of human body waste within 100 feet of a water source... human body waste. Violation of these conditions is prohibited. ...