Child observation Essay Example for Free

Child observation Essay All the children at Gerber Preschool are between the ages of 3 and 4 years old and mainly consist of lower to lower middle class Hispanic and Caucasian families. Mya is a small statured 3 year old Hispanic Caucasian female, with light olive-toned skin, long brown hair, and large brown eyes. Toby is an average statured 4 year old Caucasian male, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, short brown hair. Toby and Mya both seem to be in good physical heath. Jesus is a slightly above average statured 4 year old Hispanic male, with dark brown skin, short spikey black hair and brown eyes. Spanish is Jesus primary language at home but is encouraged to speak English at school. Mya, Toby, and Jesus all appear to be right handed and in good physical heath. Description of Setting: The observation session began on Tuesday May 7, 2013, at approximately 10:00 AM in Gerber, California; the preschool has 2 adults and 8-10 kids. All the children were in line waiting to exit out the back door to the playground. The playground featured a large fenced off area with a large grassy area and the class flower bed covered by a large shade tree, large cement slab with tricycles and tetherball, play house, sand box, and large gym set. There is an assortment of activities available for the children to play including: kickball, bubble buckets, tetherball, hopscotch, jump rope, soccer, etc. Primary Observation: Start time 10:00 AM on Tuesday, May 7, 2013 10:00- Toby impatiently stands in line telling Jesus â€Å"I’m going to be the first one on the playground† Jesus yells â€Å"No I am! † two people behind them Mya and Jessica are holding hands laughing and whispering in each other’s ears. Everyone is squirming about unable to sit still waiting for the go ahead to head outside. 10:05- The children rush outside onto the grass and prepare for story time. Jesus screams â€Å"Rainbow Fish† once he sees the book in the teacher’s hands. Mya excitingly says â€Å"I want a rainbow fish† to Jesus, he in return says â€Å"I want one too. † All the children sit down so the teacher could begin the story. 10:10- During the story Toby was unable to see the book and yells to his teacher â€Å"Aren’t you going to face it to me. He continues to be disruptive getting up and interrupting the teacher. Toby is very energetic and begins to get restless playing with whatever is within his reach. He starts disturbing Jessica until the teacher asks him to sit back down and stop disturbing others Toby than sits back down and begins whining that he is unable to see the book again. 10:15- At the end of the story the teacher asks the children â€Å"Why did Rainbow Fish give away his scales? † Jesus immediately stood up and said â€Å"Because he was alone and wanted friends† Toby says â€Å"Now he has no more rainbow scales. † 10:20- The class is now on free time for the rest of the day. All the children immediately take off running for the playground; Toby and Jesus immediately go for the tricycles. While Mya went straight for the flower bed to dig with the shovel and buckets that were there. 10:25- Jesus, Toby, and another little boy raced back and forth across the pavement a couple times but quickly lost interest in the tricycles and more interested in what the other children were doing. 10:30- Toby ran over to where Mya was and Mya said â€Å"Let’s play house† the children discussed where they would live and what part they would act out. Toby excitedly screamed â€Å"Ok, I’m the daddy†, and Mya says â€Å"I’m the mommy†, and two other little boys Gauge and Angel are the sons. 10:35- Mya runs over to the play house and begins putting sand in a bucket and acts as if she is cooking while Toby makes the fire. Jesus walks over and picks up Mya’s bucket, she instantly got mad at Jesus and hit him. Jesus left crying and she said â€Å"He didn’t say please, so leave me alone. † She than stuck her tongue out at him, another girl by the name of Jessica told the teacher. The teacher told Mya that if she couldn’t talk nice and share she would have to choose another area to play. 10:40- After the incident Toby moves over to a bucket of bubbles with 3 wands, colored green, purple, and pink. Toby and Jesus blow bubbles together. No bubbles were coming out of Toby’s wand, so he blew with more force. Toby takes his wand to the teacher. He brought his wand back, dipped it in the bubble bucket and flung it out. 10:45- Mya gets the purple bubble wand and Toby goes over to Mya and tries to take it away from her. Mya begins to make sounds of being upset but soon gets over it when the other children begin popping the bubbles and she joins in squealing and laughing. 10:50- The teacher blows her whistle to signal to the children it’s time to clean up and go inside. Mya quickly grabs the bubble bucket yelling â€Å"I got the bubbles† while Jesus and Toby raced to the door to line up without picking up anything. 10:55- All the children walked back into the class room and were instructed to sit at a table. Toby got up from the table and a little boy named Gauge took his seat. He tried to get the attention of the teacher but she was busy with another child, so he pulled Gauge by the shirt and begin to cry saying â€Å"get out my chair† Gauge refused to move. Once the teacher finally got to them they had already started to tussle a little. Toby and Gauge were both placed in time out but first they had to apologize to one another. 11:00- End of observation. Analysis: Gender identity is the perception of oneself as male or female (pg. 252). All three children show gender identity when they discuss the roles of one another to play house, with Mya being the mother, Jesus the father, and Gauge and Angel as the sons. Mya also displays gender identity when she pretends to cook while playing house as well. On page 254 cooperative play is described as children playing with one another taking turns, playing games, etc. Mya, Toby, and Jesus demonstrate cooperative play as well as make-believe play throughout their game of house they coordinated ideas together as a group. Cooperative play is also apparent when the children play with the bubbles. The text on page 264 states that aggression is an intentional injury or harm to another person. Mya showed aggression by hitting Jesus when she became angry at him. Toby also displayed aggression when he grabbed Gauge in an attempt to get his chair back. In sum all of the children seem to be displaying appropriate social and emotional behavior and skills typical of their age.

Friend Recommendation System Software Design

Friend Recommendation System Software Design CHAPTER 4 SOFTWARE DESIGN DESCRIPTION 4.1Â  INTRODUCTION The Software Design Document provides transcript which will be used to aid in the software development phase of this project by providing the details for how the software should be built. Within the Software Design Document are narrative and graphical documentation of the software design for the project including use case models, sequence diagrams, object behaviour models, and other supporting requirement information. The requirements in SRS will be fully addressed in this software design document or alternative solution should be given. 4.2Â  DESIGN OVERVIEW The purpose of this software design document is to provide insight into the structure and design of each component in the Friend recommendation system. Topics covered include the following: Class hierarchies and interactions Data flow and design (DFD) User interface design Test cases and expected results In short, this document is meant to equip the reader with a solid understanding of the inner workings of the Friend recommendation system. The modules, as can be perceived from figure [ ], are as follows: Collect_Data_From_Sensors Data Collection Data preprocessing Activity Recognition Friend-matching graph construction Friend query and Feedback control These modules will be described in detail in the next section on System Design. 4.3Â  SYSTEM DESIGN This section provides a modular structure of the proposed system and explains each subsystem along with the relationships between the subsystems and the interfaces between the modules. Figure 4.1: The Architecture Diagram 4.4Â  DESIGN CONSTRAINTS: The server should be multithreaded. The Android application at the client side should have a retry mechanism to connect to server. Software System Attributes Usability : The software will be embedded in a website. It should be scalable designed to be easily adopted by a system. Reliability : The system should have accurate results and fast response to user’s changing habits. Security : The system uses GPS location information to find friends within some distance. In order to provide privacy, a region surrounding the accurate location will be uploaded to the system. 4.5Â  MODULE STRUCTURE The below is the structure of modules: Username/password User’s Credentials User Data User Data Query for Processed data Friends Send FeedbackFriend ListFriend List Figure 4.2 : The Module design 4.4.1 DESCRIPTION OF MODULES This section describes each of the above modules in brief. Module: LoginOrRegister This module contains login or registration in order to register the user with Friendbook application. If the user has already registered, then he/she can directly login and start using the application. If he/she is not registered then he/she has to register with friendbook application. Module: Authenticate Users This module compares the entered Username and Password with the respective records among the database entries. If a match is found, then redirects the user to his/her profile page. Else, an appropriate message is thrown and the user is redirected to the registration page. For registration, compares the Username entered with the ones in the database to check its availability. If unavailable, then asks for a different Username, else create a new record in the database and save the entered details. Redirects the user to his/her profile page on registration with appropriate message, if the Username is not already present. If the Username entered during registration is not unique, then an appropriate message is thrown. Name and Usernames should start with an alphabet and Password should contain at least one alphabet and one numeric character and one special character. Module: Collect_Data_From_Sensors Smartphone (e.g., iPhone or Android-based smartphones) are equipped with a rich set of embedded sensors, such as GPS, accelerometer, microphone, gyroscope, and camera. On the client side, each smartphone records data of its user from the sensors such as accelerometer, and GPS information. This collected data is further sent to the server for further processing. Module: Data Collection and Pre-processing This module collects the data sent from the client side. The raw data collected will be in format {time ,latitude ,longitude ,accx ,accy ,accz }. The collected raw data is further pre processed to remove outliers. Median filtering technique is used for outlier detection and removal. An unsupervised learning technique is applied on the preprocessed data to form clusters known as Kmeans clustering algorithm. The resulting clusters forms a list of activities carried out by a user, where each cluster representing an activity. Module: Activity Recognition Now that the k clusters are formed, each represents an activity, lifestyles are further extracted from these activities using LDA algorithm. A library called LAML is used*. It provides a convenient API to get topic structures for an array of input strings.The extracted lifestyles are used to find the similarities between the users. Once the similarity is calculated, the user who has highest similarity is suggested as a friend. Module: User Query and Feedback Control This module performs two tasks, it accepts and responds to user queries (eg, query for friend list) and collects feedback from users in order to improve the accuracy of the friend recommendation system. 4.6Â  INTERFACE DESCRIPTION: The following is the list of external interfaces: SOCIAL NETWORK PORTAL: A portal where the users can do registration by entering their details and also provide a feedback on the recommendations to improve the accuracy of the system. It is implemented using JSP and HTML. MOBILE INTERFACE: It continually sends the daily activities to the server via network using TCP connection. The daily activities are characterized by walking, sitting and GPS location. RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM : This is the interface in which the friend recommender algorithm works in the background. This interface will be used by the users. Customer cannot do many operations, but their feedbacks or ratings are very important to create a relevant recommendation. End users can only provide feedback and view recommendations. HARDWARE INTERFACES : The recommendation system can work on any smartphone device. These devices should have some limit requirements to make the application run effectively. The processor speed and internet speed are expected to be high. SOFTWARE INTERFACES: This system can work on any platform. Internet connection is a must to reach the system. Moreover, most of the application will be coded by Java. Java APIs of database management tools such as Netbeans, which is a standalone workbench application to interact with database management tools. 4.6.1 Use Case Diagrams And Key Features A use case diagram is a kind of behavioral design, which is constructed from an analysis. It presents a graphical synopsis of the capabilities provided by a system in terms of actors, aims and dependencies between use cases. Friend book user can perform following activities: Install the application in their mobiles Login/Register with the application View the list of most similar friends Upload feedback for improving accuracy of the system. The Use Case diagram in Figure 4.3, shows the different functionalities a friendbook user can perform. Figure 4.3 : Friendbook User Use Case The System can perform following activities: Collect raw data from users Pre-process the data Perform Activity Recognition and extract the lifestyles using LDA Find the list of friends based on similarity between users Handle Feedback Figure 4.4 : The Server Part Use Case 4.8Â  Class Diagram Top Level Client-Side Class Diagram: The client side class diagram, mainly consists of UI(user interface) required for a user to register with the application by providing user’s information, after which user will be able to login and start the service. Once the application starts, it continually records the values from sensors in the format: The above values are to the server at regular intervals (say 3secs). In order to send the values to server a TCP connection is setup. Once the connection is setup, the device will start sending the data. The users can also provide a feedback on the recommendation results given to them. Top Level Server-Side Class Diagram: The server-side class diagram, consists of classes that are executed in a sequential manner. Firstly, ActivityClustering class collects the data sent from the android device, and pre-processes it using median filtering technique. After the data is filtered, the processed data is then partitioned into k clusters using k-means algorithm. Next, a class known as ConvertToActivitySeq is invoked, which maps the activities to cluster they are close to and produces a list containing sequence of activities i.e,. the life document. This document is further given as an input to LifeStylemodelling class, which computes p(word/document) i.e, it calculates probability of word given the document matrix. This matrix is then decomposed to produce two matrices, called p(word/lifestyle) and p(lifestyle/document). Finally, p(lifestyle/document) matrix is used to calculate the similarities of the lifestyles between users. 4.8Â  DATA FLOW DIAGRAM The data flow diagrams are pictorial representation of data flowing in the system. DFD’s are used for the purpose of viewing the data processing in the system. In a data flow diagram, the data elements flow from external or an internal data source, through an internal process. Level 0 Data Flow Diagram A level 0 DFD or a context level design represents the intercommunication between the system and external sources, which act as data sinks. In Level 0 DFD, the interaction between the system and external entity are designed in terms of data flows across the system boundaries. This level diagram shows the complete system as a single procedure. In the DFD diagram shown in Fig*, the lifestyle information are the sensor values sent from the client i.e., android phone to the server. The data sent from client are processed to produce a list of potential friends. Figure 4.* : Level 0 DFD of Lifestyle based friend recommender Level 1 Data Flow Diagram The level 1 DFD, exhibits how the system is split into sub components, where each component represents one or more data flows to or from an external source. And when combined, it provides the complete functionality of the system as a whole. It represents the inter components data flows in a specific sequence and also the data flow between the components of the system. The proposed application consists of the components as shown in the figure 5.*. It first performs data collection, raw data pre-processing by noise removal, Activity recognition where each cluster represents an activity and finally calculates similaties between users to suggest a friend. Figure 5.* : Level 1 DFD of Lifestyle based friend recommender 4.9Â  OBJECTS AND ACTIONS (SEQUENCE DIAGRAM) The sequence diagrams shows below. Sequence for Setup Connection: This sequence is to set up FOR TCP connection between user and the server. Also monitors GPS and Accelerometer by collecting the data from them. Sequence for Monitor Result to the server: The raw data, that is sent from the client is collected by server. And the collected raw data is pre-processed for outlier removal. Sequence for Finding Friends: When the user queries for the friend list, the server accepts the request from the client and responds by sending the potential list of friends. Sequence for Data Collection: The data collection module collects life documents from users’ smartphones. The life document is collection of users activities. The life styles of users are extracted by the life style analysis module with the probabilistic topic model(by using a library for LDA ). Then the life style indexing module puts the life styles of users into the database in the format of (life- style, user) instead of (user, life-style). As the packet arrives , these packet will be store in files. Sequence for Preprocessing: The user sends data, and preprocesses to make the data consistent, by remove irrelevant data.The preprocessed data is converted into archive and upload to the database. Sequence for Database Connection: Data base connection is established when a friend request query is posed. A TCP connection will be established between user and server. Server will process this request and respond with the extracted information from the database i.e, the list of potential friends. 4.10Â  PSEUDO CODE MOBILE END: SERVER SIDE PSEUDO CODE:

Miniature Wireless Inertial and Magnetic Sensors Research

Miniature Wireless Inertial and Magnetic Sensors Research An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless an external force acts upon it. Similarly, if the object is at rest, it will remain at rest unless an unbalanced force acts upon it. When a force acts on an object, it will cause the object to accelerate. The larger the mass of the object, the greater the force will need to be to cause it to accelerate. Sir Isaac Newton. Throughout centuries, people were fascinated with the study of motion. In fact, several disciplines were created, in which laws of physics and mechanics are applied to objects or biological systems in order to study the effect of the forces acting upon them. One of those disciplines is biomechanics, which involves, among others, the study of the kinetics and kinematics of the human body. Locomotion is one of the primary functions of the human body (Moore et al. 2010) and studying its characteristics and its effects on the musculoskeletal system is of great importance, especially in our times, when musculoskeletal disorders are ranking very high amongst the top debilitating diseases worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation (Brooks 2006; Cross et al. 2014; St. John 2015). Degenerative musculoskeletal diseases, such as osteoarthritis (OA) are most prevalent in the elderly population, of 55 years and older (Reginster 2002). Over the past decades, the United Nations reported a steady increase in the life expectancy of the world population (Oeppen and Vaupel 2008), which marked a concomitant increase in the number of years in which sufferers need to manage the disease (Cross et al. 2014), thereby not only lowering the quality of life of the patient but also putting extra strain on the health care system. Although OA is an autoimmune disease and its origins are not yet fully understood, the literature suggests that in some patients OA can be caused by other degenerative processes such as femuroacetabular impingement (FAI) (Benedetti et al. 1998; Ganz et al. 2001), genu varum or genu valgum (Moore et al. 2010), which have a much earlier onset than OA. Early diagnosis in such cases could help prevent or postpone the onset of OA in the patients joints. Motion analysis has been widely tested as a means of diagnosing skeletal misalignment processes, such as the ones mentioned above. The knee joint is not only the largest joint in the human body, but due to its position and weight bearing properties, also one of the most injurie and disease prone skeletal feature (Moore et al. 2010). After all, knee OA is one of the most prevalent types of arthritis affecting the world population (Cross et al. 2014). Moreover, the knee joint is often used in proof of concept studies, as a simplified biomechanical hinge joint (Seel et al. 2014), which only allows rotation about its main axis the flexion extension axis, making it ideal for the purpose of the current study. The motion to be analysed in the following chapters will be knee flexion-extension during dynamic walking conditions. Amongst the most popular motion analysis tools are the marker based optical motion capture systems and their associated protocols. Optical motion capture is often performed in the laboratory with very expensive equipment and using this type of equipment in a non-laboratory based environment presents significant limitations which can compromise the accuracy of the acquired data. However, the differences between the laboratory setting and a natural environment in which a movement is carried out could affect the manner in which the patient conducts himself. It is therefore of great importance to find an appropriate motion analysis tool which can be used accurately in a non-laboratory based environment, is user friendly, requires a short set up time and is cost effective. The scope of the current thesis is to combine the use of state of the art equipment and a motion capture and computational data processing protocol which allows biomechanical analysis of human motion in a non-laboratory based environment. The purpose of the study is to test the applicability, feasibility and reliability of using a network of wireless inertial sensors and a designated data acquisition and processing protocol to assess human knee flexion-extension during gait in a non-laboratory based environment. Successfully proving that using such a technique in a non-laboratory based environment is applicable and reliable, could not only offer an ambulatory, and more rapid, user friendly, and cost effective alternative to the optical motion capture silver standard, used currently in the laboratory, the applications of such a technique would be spread across numerous fields, e.g. diagnostics and prevention of disease, physical repair, ergonometry, engineering of prosthetic limbs. Objectives The objectives of the current study are to perform a series of experiments using a network of miniature wireless inertial and magnetic sensors, in conjunction with a data processing protocol, proposed by Seel et. al (2014) and described in detail in the following chapters, in order to validate the system for use in a non-laboratory based environment. The experiments will have the following purposes: Ruling out any gyroscope bias. Testing the accuracy of the gyroscope sensors and the methodology proposed by Seel et. al (2014) for deriving a rotation angle from gyroscope data, against a robotic setup gold standard. Testing the accuracy with which the cameras of the optical motion capture system track the markers in the measurement volume. Testing the methodology proposed by Seel et. al (2014) for calculating a rotation angle by combining gyroscope and accelerometer data, against the Vicon calibration wand. Validating the above mentioned method for calculating knee flexion-extension angles during gait, against the Vicon camera system current silver standard for human motion capture. Comparing knee flexion-extension angles from gait recorded in a laboratory- and a non-laboratory based environment, with the sensor system and processed with the protocol proposed by Seel et. al (2014). Aims By following these objectives, the aims of the current study are to demonstrate the following set of null hypotheses: H01 The sensor system and proposed protocol function together with high accuracy. H02 There are no statistically significant differences between knee flexion-extension angles recorded during gait with the sensor system, and the ones recorded with the optical motion capture system. H03 There are no statistically significant differences between knee flexion-extension angles recorded with the sensors system in the laboratory, and the ones recorded outdoors. Anatomy and pathology of the human knee joint The lower limbs of the human body (Fig 2.1), are part of the appendicular skeleton (Gerhardt et al. 2012). The leg is formed of three long bones, the femur constituting the thigh bone and the tibia and fibula constituting the bones of the lower leg (Rabuffetti and Crenna 2004). The femur (Fig 2.2A) is the largest bone in the human body. Proximally, the femur articulates with the pelvis, to form the hip joint. Distally, the femur articulates with the tibia (Fig 2.2A) to form the knee joint (Fig 2.2B)(Joseph 2014). The femur is positioned diagonally within the thigh, forming an alignment axis along the line of force of the quadriceps femoris muscle surrounding it, which can be represented by drawing a line from the anterior superior iliac spine (ASIS) to the centre of the patella (Fig 2.2C)(Moore et al. 2010). The tibia is almost vertically positioned within the shank, forming an alignment axis virtually parallel to the vertical gravitational axis, traversing the centre of the patella. The alignment of the knee joint is greatly influenced by the angle between the quadriceps muscle and the patellar tendon, called the Q angle (Fig 2.2C)(Moore et al. 2010). The knee joint is represented by large articular surfaces, with a joint capsule consisting of a fibrous external layer and an internal synovial membrane, lining all surfaces of the articular cavity which are not covered by hyaline cartilage (Drake et al. 2012; Moore et al. 2010) . The hyaline cartilage, covering the bony extremities of the synovial joint, lowers friction between the elements and additional structures, such as articular discs, fat pads and tendons may be present in this type of joint (Ellis 2006). Mechanically, the knee is a relatively weak structure, its stability being highly dependent on the strength of the soft tissue surrounding it. The most stable position of the knee joint is when a person is standing up right and the knee is fully extended. In this position, the medial rotation of the femoral condyles on the articular surface of the tibia, creates a passive lock, which is inactivated when the femur rotates laterally to allow flexion (Moore et al. 2010). The primary functions of the human lower limbs are support and locomotion (Drake et al. 2012; Ellis 2006; Moore et al. 2010). Functions in which the knee joints, along with the other joints of the lower limbs, play a crucial role. Human gait, for instance, is a complex motion which, when occurring on a planar surface, can be divided in two phases, containing 7 total events. One gait cycle (Fig 2.3) consists of a stance phase (60% of the total action) and a swing phase (40% of the total action), corresponding to a single step made by one leg. From a biomechanical point of view, joints are often classified according to their ability to move across a defined number of axes using mechanical models. The knee joint for example is often considered to be a hinge (Fig 2.4), acting like a fulcrum between two levers, represented by the femur and tibia (Moore et al. 2010; Zatsiorsky 1998). However, the movements of the knee joint are a widely discussed subject and there are at least four points of view in the literature concerning the correct identification of the flexion-extension axis of the knee joint (Zatsiorsky 1998). The flexion-extension axis is recognized as being the main axis of rotation of the tibiofemoral joint, however, it was reported that when the knee is fully extended an endo-exo rotation of the tibia with respect to the femoral condyles occurs (Ellis 2006; Fick 1911a; Hollister et al. 1993; Moore et al. 2010). Furthermore, Hollister et al. (1993) reported that full extension of the knee is accompanied by an additional abduction-adduction of the tibia. Firstly, based on the Reuleaux method, researchers claimed that the knee flexion-extension axis is instantaneous and displaces during motion (Blacharski and Somerset 1975; Frankel et al. 1971; Schmidt 1973; Soudan and Auderkercke 1979; Zuppinger 1904). However, this view was highly criticised by (Panjabi et al. 1982), who claimed that the flawed experimental designs of the previously mentioned researchers led to inaccuracies in their results. Secondly, a helical rather than simple rotation occurring about a flexion-extension axis, which changes its orientation during motion, and about an independent tibial endo-exo rotation axis, was suggested (Braune and Fischer 1891; Bugnion 1892; Zuppinger 1904) and later reviewed by (Fick 1911b), (Steindler 1955), and (Strasser 1917). However, Fick later suggested that the knee flexion-extension axis was a fixed axis located in the distal femur, traversing the lateral and medial condyle posteriorly (Fick 1911a). A hypothesis which was supported by (Elias et al. 1990) findings, which further suggested an involvement of the surrounding ligaments in the motion. Finally, (Hollister et al. 1993) claimed that knee flexion-extension is indeed dependent on the movement of the collateral and cruciate ligaments and that therefore, mechanically, knee motion occurs about an infinite number of axes. Nevertheless, most biomechanical models used in the literature for assessing motion capture data, assume a fixed flexion-extension axis for the knee (Cutti et al. 2010; Ehrig et al. 2007; Seel et al. 2014). The physical aspects of the musculoskeletal system are, however, not the only factors concerning skeletal kinematics. On a physiological level, although often considered invariable, bones undergo constant remodelling under the influence of mechanical stimuli. Bone remodelling is, in fact, a constant balance between osteogenesis (the process of bone formation) and osteoclastogenesis (the process of bone resorption), processes which regulate bone mass and are highly dependent on mechanical stress and strain (Marieb 2009). The effects of mechanical stimuli on the skeletal environment have been extensively studied in the past and mathematical models, such as Frosts mechanostat, based on the theory that the human skeleton evolves for and serves mechanical needs primarily (Frost 1987), have been developed for a better understanding of this mechanism. In Frosts view, the skeleton has an in-built mechanical feedback system which responds to increase or decrease in mechanical loading or hormonal changes by adjusting the bone mass so that it is specially distributed for optimal mechanical function (Frost 1987). Although Frosts mathematical model took into account very important parameters, such as Youngs modulus for bone, peak strain, peak stress and changes in density, it did not take into account the ability of bone cells to adapt to the environment (Turner 1999). However, Turners mathematical theory for bone biology, called the principle of cellular accommodation (Turner 1999), based on Wolffs law of bone transformation (Wolff 1982) and Frosts mechanostat (Frost 1987), offered an alternative version, which corrected for flaws discovered in the initial models (Turner 1999). In 1982, Julius Wolff proposed a theory which stated that high stress-generated potentials can act as electrical stimuli for the activation of osteocyte cells within bone tissue, which in response could trigger an anabolic event following activation of bone forming cells (Wolff 1982). Turners principle of cellular accommodation corrected for the assumption in Frosts mechanostat that suggested that cellular sensitization is a continuous and endless process, that can eventually lead to complete loss of bone mass or ossification of bone tissue (Turner 1999). In contrast to that, the principle of cellular accommodation stated that mechanical loading and unloading indeed stimulates bone formation and, respectively bone resorption, but that, over time the bone cells become immune to loading cycles (provided the load has an equal value over time) and their metabolic rate decreases. Nevertheless, mechanical stress and strain are not exclusively affecting the bones within the skeletal system, but also the cartilage and surrounding tissue. Changes in the mechanical environment or properties of cartilage within a joint, can generate stimuli, which initiate degenerative processes (Boyd and Ronsky 1997; Churchill et al. 1998b; Davis and DeLuca 1996), e.g. osteoarthritis. OA is a progressive disorder, which causes the loss of articular cartilage, exposing the joint extremities, where the direct contact between bones results in ulceration and calcification of the tissue. OA is one of the worlds leading debilitating diseases, which lowers the quality of life and can lead to immobility of the patient. The exact mechanism of OA is not clear yet, however, there are a series of factors which researchers found to play a role in the onset, incidence and epidemiology of the disease. For knee OA, these factors include amongst genetic background, age, gender, obesity (Felson 2004a), and occupational (Cooper et al. 1994; Maetzel et al. 1997; McMillan and Nichols 2005) or sports injuries (Roos et al. 1994), local mechanical factors affecting the integrity of the joint, such as muscle weakness, damage to the ligaments and meniscus, joint incongruity and misalignment of femoral condyles on the tibial plateau (Felson 2004b). It has been reported that knee injury in men and obesity in women are amongst the leading and most modifiable causes of onset or progression of knee OA (Felson et al. 2000). Moreover, (Felson 2013) claimed that knee OA is almost always caused by increased forces acting on a joint and that such forces could be a result of knee malalignment (Felson and Hodgson 2014) or a combination of malalignment and obesity (Felson et al. 2004). Causes which can be addressed and treated in order to prevent progression or onset of OA, if identified in timely manner (Felson and Hodgson 2014; Teichtahl et al. 2009). Genu varum (bowed-legs) and genu valgum (knocked-knees) are both conditions in which the alignment of the knee is affected. Genu varum is defined by a decreased Q-angle (Moore et al. 2010), and is reported to increase mechanical loading in the medial knee compartment by 70-79% (Tetsworth and Paley 1994) even in cases where the varum is as little as 5 °, which can lead to substantial cartilage loss (Sharma et al. 2008; Teichtahl et al. 2009) and the onset of OA (Brouwer et al. 2007). In contrast, genu valgum is defined by an increased Q-angle (Moore et al. 2010), which is reported to in increases loading in the lateral knee compartment, thereby, increasing the risk of progressive OA 5 fold (Sharma et al. 2001; Teichtahl et al. 2006). Furthermore, (Hsu et al. 1990) and (Kettelkamp et al. 1976) report a correlation between medial lateral forces and knee alignment during standing which, however, is only present in genu varum sufferers during gait (Harrington 1983). Motion analysis has proved to be a useful tool in the study of lower limbs kinematics and disorders of knee (Andriacchi et al. 1983; Berchuck et al. 1990; Draganich et al. 1991; Kettelkamp et al. 1976; Noyes et al. 1992; Wang et al. 1990) and increasingly more researchers use motion capture systems and biomechanical computational models for the purpose of quantifiable and numerical motion analysis (Alexander and Andriacchi 2001; Bonci et al. 2015; Cappozzo et al. 2005; Cereatti and Della Croce 2006; Cutti et al. 2010; Davis et al. 1991; Ehrig et al. 2007; Ferrari et al. 2010a; Garofalo et al. 2009; Haid and Breitenbach 2004; Kratzenstein et al. 2010b; Leardini et al. 2005; Luinge et al. 2012; Pasciuto et al. 2015; Roetenberg et al. 2003; Schepers et al. 2010; Seel et al. 2014; Taylor et al. 2005). Motion capture systems and protocols During the past decades, quantifiable motion analysis has been widely studied and the need for developing a low cost and user friendly technique, which enables motion capture in a non-laboratory based environment, has been emphasised time and time again (Calliess et al. 2014; Gaffney et al. 2011; Liu et al. 2011; Pfau et al. 2005; Soangra and Lockhart 2012; Vlasic et al. 2007; Wixted et al. 2010; Yang et al. 2011; Zhou and Hu 2004, 2008). Quite a few motion capture systems were developed in order to aid motion studies. These systems were reviewed extensively (Frey et al. 1996; Hightower and Borriello 2001; Meyer et al. 1992; Welch and Foxlin 2002) and can be largely classified in the following categories: robot aided, visual and non-visual (Vlasic et al. 2007; Zhou and Hu 2004, 2008). Robot aided motion capture This technique employs the use of electromechanical systems, such as Gypsyà ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢ (Meta Motion) and ShapeWrapà ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢ (Measurand), called exoskeletons, which the subjects are required to wear, in order to compute joint angles from electric resistance. These systems are not restricted to laboratory use, however, they are uncomfortable and motion restricting even in the most updated versions of the hardware (Vlasic et al. 2007).

Summary Of Latex Allergy :: essays research papers

Summary on Latex Allergy in the Workplace (from JADA) Latex Allergy in the Workplace first talks about the background of the obvious problem of Latex allergy. Natural rubber latex is extracted from the milky sap of the rubber tree Hevea Braziliensis namely in Malaysia. The history of Latex gloves began over a hundred years ago. The first recorded incidence of hypersensitivity (allergic reaction) to the natural rubber Latex occurred in 1939. Because of the upsurge of infectious diseases there was an increase in imported Latex gloves increased from one million in 1987 to eight million in 1988. Also, because of this increase in demand, foreign suppliers didn't live up to the US requirements in manufacturing the gloves, which has of course resulted in a higher latex exposure. And because of Latex being an allergen, the repeated exposure to it may become life threatening. Some types of allergic reactions are as follows: ICD – Irritant Contact Dermatitis – Because of around 200 different compounding chemicals in the gloves, and not properly washing hands after use an itchy, irritated, dryness occurs on the hands. ACD – Allergic Contact Dermatitis (Type IV) – is a delayed reaction to the Latex and usually occurs 24 to 96 hours after exposure. The symptoms of this certain reaction, is similar to poison ivy. Immediate Hypersensitivity (Type I) – Although the least common reactions to latex, these are the most severe and life-threatening. There have been serious reactions to Latex when inhaled as the proteins are aerosolized during glove cleaning and removal. In 1997 62% of Latex related deaths were from gloves alone. A positive diagnosis of Latex allergy is made by using the results of a medical history, physical exam, diagnostic/exposure related evaluation, and tests. Some tests include, the patch test, the prick skin test, and radio allegro-sorbent tests. With all these tests there is yet to be a 'gold standard'; for diagnosing Latex allergy. The big problem with these tests is that there are a significant number of wrong diagnosis results. The article goes on to tell just who is at risk to this allergy and who has increased risk. Everyone really is at risk to developing an allergy to Latex because even if you are not healthcare providers, workers that produce Latex products, or children with spina bifida or urogenital defect (all which have increased risk) you can still be exposed to Latex in many ways.

The Yellow Wallpaper and The Cask Of Amontillado -- Yellow Wallpaper C

The Yellow Wallpaper and The Cask Of Amontillado  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚      The short story, " The Yellow Wallpaper", written by Charlotte Gilman, and "The Cask of Amontillado" written by Edgar Allan Poe, are stories in which the plots are very different, but share similar qualities with the elements in the story. "The Cask of Amontillado" is a powerful tale of revenge, in which the narrator of the tale pledges revenge upon Fortunato for an insult. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a story about a woman, her psychological difficulties and her husband's therapeutic treatment of her illness. She struggles over her illness, and battle's her controlling husband. The settings in both stories are very important, they influence the characters, and help with the development of the plot.   In "The Yellow Wallpaper" the setting helps define the action as well as to explain characters behaviors. The setting is which the story takes place is in the narrators room, where she is severally ill, and she is "locked up" in the room which served as her cage. The room in which the narrator is caged in is a nursery, "it is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways. The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it." The narrator describes the color of the walls as repellent, almost revolting, it is an unclear yellow with a dull orange. The condition that the narrator is in, the repulsiveness of the room, and the room haunting her, drives her into insanity.   "The Cask of Amontillado" takes place in an appropriate setting, not only is the setting underground, but also in the blackness of the night. The story begins around dusk, one evening during the carnival season in a European city. The location quickly change... ...he wall, he thinks about his rejected opportunities and his unbearable regret. As he sobers with terror, the final blow will come from the realization that his life is ending in his catacombs dying with his finest wine. The catacombs, in which he dies, set the theme, and relate well with the story. Without the yellow wallpaper in the short story, the significance of the wallpaper would not mater, nor would it set the theme or plot. At night the wallpaper becomes bars, and the wallpaper lets her see herself as a women and her desire to free herself. She needs to free herself from the difficulties of her husband, and from her sickness. The settings in both, set up the elements of the stories and ads to the effect in both of the short stories.   Bibliography Branson, Leigh W. Edgar Allen Poe's Literary Neighborhood, 17 Mar. 1997 *htt://www.geocities.com/Athens

Pretty Little Liars Essay

Are Pretty Little Liars good at keeping their dirty secretes? Pretty Little Liars a favorite ABC Family series is built around five teenage friends, until one goes missing and is found dead. It has a strong hint of supernatural force that mean no good. It makes most popular vampire romances look anemic. Because of a popular series of HarperTeen books by Sara Shepard, Pretty Little Liars follows the nervous lives of four girls in Rosewood, Pa. It’s a small town and these girls seem to have it all and that sets it up for an even better drama, when we start to see they also have secrets. The season premier starts with the disappearance and apparent death of the fifth girl in the circle, Alison DiLorentis. If the PLL series were traditional, Alison, Sasha Pieterse would have been the sweetest girl in school and no one could imagine anyone wanting to hurt her. If that’s what you’re expecting here, you’re wrong. Alison was a bitchy gossiper, backstabber and cruel practical joker. In any case, they were all together the night she disappeared and we join the story a year later, when free spirit Aria, Lucy Hale, nerdySpencer,TroianBellisario, crazy Hanna, Ashley Benson and jock Emily Shay Mitchell have drifted apart. Drug and alcohol use, foul language, scanty clothing, sexual innuendo and some passioate make-out scenes and homosexuality all make Pretty Little Liars a series that keeps viewers on their feet. Every episode leaves you with a cliffhanger. They run into each other in random chance encounters, however, that suggest each is harboring dark secrets, some related to Alison and some not. Since they apparently weren’t into deep sharing when they were all best friends then, they aren’t spilling now. Except they have two problems. A local cop is determined to find out what happened to Alison. Second, the girls all start getting mysterious messages that suggest some supernatural force knows all the secrets and could and sometimes do expose them to the public. Could the messages be coming from Alison? But isn’t that impossible? What kind of phone network lets you keep texting when you’re dead? I’d say that’s beyond 4g. It’s one thing to talk with your friends about lacrosse practice or the hot guy in the French class. It’s something else when you’re trying to figure out what happened to your disappeared friend, and how disappeared she really is. â€Å"Pretty Little Liars† is good at making us care about the girl’s lives. It keeps us thinking each week as to what might happen the next.

Health Literacy Essay

I. Background Child health is an essential indicator of the quality of life in developing countries. Mothers’ literacy is often positively associated with improved child health and nutritional status (Glewwe, 1999). The possession of literacy increases the ability of a mother or a family to acquire more knowledge. Improvements in child health are considered as the consequences of enhanced of mother’s knowledge. In short, literacy affects health, and health affects educational achievement (Grosse, 1989). Because the correlation between literacy, health, wealth and well-being is becoming increasingly important, it is crucial to include health literacy as skills required for an adult ‘to function’ in a community (Kickbusch, 2001). Health literacy has been recognized as a key outcome measure of health promotion interventions (Nutbeam, 1996). It can be categorized as basic/functional health literacy, communicative/interactive health literacy and critical literacy. Each level has different ‘autonomy and personal empowerment’. Individual attention is focused on developing the skills and confidence to make choices that enhance individual health outcomes (Nutbeam, 2000). As the highest level, critical literacy ideally will be achieved in which people have this capability to search for information, assess the reliability of that information and use that information to have a better control over their health determinants (Nutbeam and Renkert, 2001). Following this health literacy concept, Nutbeam and Renkert (2001) define mother’s health literacy as ‘the cognitive and social skills which determine the motivation and ability of women to gain access to, understand and use the information in ways that promote and maintain their health and that of their children’. In terms of literacy, Indonesia has a relatively high of literacy rate of 90% (UNICEF, 2007). However, people with adequate literacy for dealing with  familiar concepts and practices, such as household management can discover a considerable difficulty to understand unfamiliar issues, such as health care information (Kalichman and Rompa, 2000). For mothers, health literacy skills are important factors in predicting child health outcomes. Indonesia as a developing country still faces many child health problems. Infant, neonatal and under-5 mortality rate was relatively high (26, 17 and 34 per 1000 live births, respectively) in 2006. Child immunization coverage is still considerably low with measles coverage of 66. 2%, MCV (80%), DPT (75%) and hepatitis (74%) among one-year-olds (WHO, 2009). Many studies show that low literacy is related with several adverse health outcomes (DeWalt, 2004). One of the ways to improve child health is likely by improving mother’s health literacy. Many recent studies have examined the impact of mother’s health literacy on child health (Sandiford, 1995). However, there are few studies focused on the barriers to mother’s health literacy. This study will investigate barriers are there to improve mother’s health literacy on child health and find solutions might overcome the barriers. II. Objectives 1. To investigate the level of mother’s health literacy in province of Aceh (functional, interactive or critical health literacy of mothers toward child health care, participation in child care programme in villages or sub districts, health seeking behaviours, efforts to gain access to health services). 2. To explore what barriers are there to improve mother’s health literacy on child health 3. To evaluate solutions that might overcome the barriers in order to enhance mother’s health literacy. 4. To create a model of intervention to improve maternal health literacy III. Methodology This research will be conducted in quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative methods will investigate the data about the mothers’ functional, interactive and critical health literacy toward the child health care, the utilisation of primary health care by mothers in terms of health seeking behaviour, child immunization coverage and monitoring of children’s nutritional status. The data will be collected by using structured questionnaires. The functional literacy will use the structured questionnaires of Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA) (Baker, 1999) and Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM) (Bass, 2003) while the interactive and critical health literacy questionnaires will be designed by modifying the existing researches that study of maternal health literacy. Then, the results will be categorized by scoring into Inadequate, Marginal and Adequate health literacy. Before the questionnaire is used for the investigation, the validity and reliability tests will be performed. In the qualitative stage, I will conduct personal interviews and focus group discussions to find out the barriers and solutions to improve maternal health literacy. Semi-structured personal interviews will be used for mothers and health care staff (physicians, nurses and midwifes) from villages and sub-district health services. Respondents will be interviewed individually and privacy will be maintained during the interview. For focus group discussions, they will be purposively selected to ensure the maximum variation to ensure a diversity of views about barriers to improve mothers’ health literacy within the sample. For each group, initial contact will be made by a gatekeeper such as co-ordinator of village mother’s association, wife of head of village and village midwife. All groups will be facilitated by the researcher, recorded with the participants’ permission and will be fully transcribed. Sampling strategy Participant will be recruited from women who have children (younger or older children) in disparate geographical areas (social/cultural/ethnic mix) to look for contextual difference and from different level of education (no education, basic, advanced and higher education). The sample will be recruited purposively from the population data of department of health in Aceh. Women who are willing to participate, speak either Indonesia or Acehnese, and are articulate will be purposively selected for the qualitative study. For the quantitative study, respondents will be selected using the multi-stage random sampling method. All respondent selected will be assured that participation is voluntary. Data analysis The recorded interviews will be transcribed word for word into the language of the interview (Bahasa Indonesia, but Acehnese will be used as many people in rural areas cannot speak bahasa) and then translated into English. Categories for analysis of data will be identified at the beginning. The transcripts will be analyzed and allocated from each subject to various categories. Data will then be analyzed according to these categories. The quantitative data will be analized using SPSS statistical software version 19. 0 (SPSS, Inc, Chicago, Ill). IV. Significance Indonesia is a developing country with a population of nearly 250 million. Low literacy and high fertility coupled with poor economy translates into high morbidity and mortality. Women and children are the most vulnerable segments in terms of health. It is important to improve maternal health literacy and other factors related to health services in order to increase child health care. It is a multi sector program that involves many stake holders including health department, medical education and community. It is important for medical education institution to educate their graduations of health promotion and health education against the current trend of medical education that is more likely to be a curative and specialist view. V. Others USA is a developed country and well known for its reputable universities especially for public health subjects. Health system in the US is different from Indonesia that will allow me to learn more about health education especially maternal health literacy in the US health system. The project will be conducted in three years. The detail of timeline can be found in the table below. Table 1. The timeline of research No| Years| Year 1| Year 2| | MonthsTasks| 1| 2| 3| 4| 5| 6| 7| 8| 9| 10| 11| 12| 1| 2| 3| 4| 5| 6| 7| 8| 9| 10| 11| 12| 1| Refine research question| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 2| Preparation of proposal| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 3| Literature review and process the local and university ethical issues| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 4| Produce the questioners | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 5| Data collection| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 6| Data analysis| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |. No| Years| Year 3| | MonthsTasks| 1| 2| 3| 4| 5| 6| 7| 8| 9| 10| 11| 12| 6| Data analysis (continued)| | | | | | | | | | | | | 8| Writing initial draft| | | | | | | | | | | | | 9| Proof reading | | | | | | | | | | | | | 10| Revision and hand in| | | | | | | | | | | | | References Baker DW, Williams MV, Parker RM, Gazmararian JA, Nurss J. Development of a brief test to measure functional health literacy. Patient Education and Counseling. 1999, 38:33-42. Bass PF, Wilson JF, and Griffith CH. A Shortened Instrument for Literacy Screening. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2003,18:1036-1038. Glewwe. P. Why does mother’s schooling raise child health in developing countries? evidence from Morocco. The Journal of Human Resources. 1999; 34 (1): 124 – 159. Grosse R. N. Literacy and health status in developing counties. Annual Review Public Health. 1989; 34: 281 – 97. Kickbusch I. S. Health literacy: addressing the health and education divide. Health Promotion International. 2001; 16 (3): 289 – 97. Nutbeam D. Achieving ‘best practice’ in health promotion: improving the fit between research and practice. Health Education Research. 1996; 11 (3): 317 – 26. Nutbeam D. Health literacy as a public health goal: a challenge for contemporary health education and communication strategies into the 21st century. Health Promotion International. 2000; 15 (3): 259 – 67. Nutbeam D and Renkert S. Opportunities to improve maternal health literacy through antenatal education: an exploratory study. Health Promotion International. 2001; 16 (4): 38 – 88. Kalichman S. C and Rompa D. Functional health literacy is associated with health status and health-related knowledge in people living with HIV-AIDS. Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. 2000; 25: 337 – 44. The World Health Organization (WHO). WHO Statistical Information System (WHOSIS) for Indonesia. 2009. Retrieved on Jan 7, 2009. Available from: http://www. who. int/whosis/data/Search. jsp? indicators=[Indicator]. Members DeWalt D. A et. al. Literacy and health outcomes. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2004; 19: 1228 – 39. Sandiford P, Cassel J, Montenegro M and Sanchez G. The impact of women’s literacy on child health and its interaction with access to health services. Population Investigation Committee. 1995; 49 (1): 5 – 17. Health Canada. Toward a Healthy Future: Second Report on the Health of Canadians. 1999. Retrieved Jan 7, 2009. Available from: http://www. phac-aspc. gc. ca/ph-sp/report-rapport/toward/pdf/toward_a_healthy_english. PDF Provincial health office Aceh province. Health profile of Aceh province in 2007. Banda Aceh-Indonesia. 2007. Rahmad Y. 2008, menurunkan angka kematian ibu dan bayi. The Globe Journal Banda Aceh. 2008. Retrieved Jan 8, 2009. Available from: http://www. theglobejournal. com/detilberita. php? id=1586 Serambi news, Di aceh masih banyak perempuan buta huruf. Serambi Indonesia. 2/12/2008. Retrieved Jan 8, 2009. Available from: http://www. serambinews. com/old/index. php? aksi=bacaberita&beritaid=59771&rubrik=1&topik=13 The United Nation Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Statistics Basic Indicator for Indonesia. 2007. Retrieved on Jan 7, 2009. Available from: http://www. unicef. org/infobycountry/indonesia_statistics. html.