Lower-limb exoskeletons have the potential to enhance rehabilitation [1], assist in walking with gait impairments [2], reduce the metabolic cost of normal [3] and load-bearing walking [4], improve stability [5] and probe interesting questions about human locomotion [6]. The ankle produces larger peak torques and performs more positive work than either the hip or the knee during locomotion [7], ...

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate a causal model of the sense of having psychological comfortable space that is call 'ibasho' in Japanese and self-esteem in people with mental disorders who had difficulty in social activities. The subjects were 248 schizophrenia patients who were living in the community and receiving day care treatment. Data were collected from December 2007 to April...

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) surveillance relies on autopsy and neuropathologic evaluation. The 1990-2000 CJD autopsy rate in California was 21%. Most neurologists were comfortable diagnosing CJD (83%), but few pathologists felt comfortable diagnosing CJD (35%) or performing autopsy (29%). Addressing obstacles to autopsy is necessary to improve CJD surveillance.

Users often arrange items on a table-top with total disregard for the natural axis of the table itself. One often finds it more comfortable to tilt personal writing or working space to a comfortable viewing angle. We present examples of rendering issues faced by interfaces which allow rotation, and explore potential flaws in their implementation.

It is difficult to define the space that all people can feel comfortable. The reason is partly because comfortness relates to many attributes that specify an environment. People have different preferences, and sometimes even the same person changes his/her preference according the state of health, body conditions, working state and so on. Various parameters and attributes of the space should be...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to determine the aerodynamic and acoustic features of speech produced at comfortable, maximal and minimal levels of vocal effort. STUDY DESIGN Prospective, quasi-experimental research design. METHOD Eighteen healthy participants with normal voice were included in this study. After task training, participants produced repeated syllable combinations at...

BACKGROUND Despite evidence for use of foot orthoses in the treatment of anterior knee pain, there is a paucity of research into their mechanisms of action. This study (i) determined the immediate lower limb kinematics and muscle activity adaptations, and (ii) evaluated the effect of individual's comfort and foot mobility. METHODS Forty individuals diagnosed with anterior knee pain were measu...

Driving a vehicle along a route consists of control actions applied to the vehicle by taking into account the vehicle and route states. Control actions are usually selected by optimizing the traveling time and the fuel consumption. However, the resulting vehicle behavior can be uncomfortable for the driver/passengers. The comfort is measured as the change of acceleration, i.e., jerk. To obtain ...

Two well-known problems of stereoscopic displays are the accommodation-convergence conflict and the lack of natural blur for defocused objects. We present a new technique that we name Super Stereoscopy (SS3D) to provide a convenient solution to these problems. Regular stereoscopic glasses are replaced by SS3D glasses which deliver at least two parallax images per eye through pinholes equipped w...

With current overuse of the road transportation system and planned increase in traffic, innovative solutions that overcome environmental and financial cost of the current system should be assessed. A promising idea is the use of the third dimension for personal transportation. Therefore, the European project myCopter, funded under the 7th framework, aimed at enabling the technologies for Person...