Protocol of a mixed-methods evaluation of Perfect Fit: A personalized mHealth intervention with a virtual coach to promote smoking cessation and physical activity in adults.

Objective: Adopting healthy behavior is vital for preventing chronic diseases. Mobile health (mHealth) interventions utilizing virtual coaches (i.e.

Electrical impedance tomography monitoring in adult ICU patients: state-of-the-art, recommendations for standardized acquisition, processing, and clinical use, and future directions.

Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is an emerging technology for the non-invasive monitoring of regional distribution of ventilation and perfusion, offering real-time and continuous data that can greatly enhance our understanding and management of various respiratory conditions and lung perfusion. Its application may be especially beneficial for critically ill mechanically ventilated patients. Despite its potential, clear evidence of clinical benefits is still lacking, in part due to a lack of standardization and transparent reporting, which is essential for ensuring reproducible research and enhancing the use of EIT for personalized mechanical ventilation.

Analysis and applications of respiratory surface EMG: report of a round table meeting.

Surface electromyography (sEMG) can be used to measure the electrical activity of the respiratory muscles. The possible applications of sEMG span from patients suffering from acute respiratory failure to patients receiving chronic home mechanical ventilation, to evaluate muscle function, titrate ventilatory support and guide treatment. However, sEMG is mainly used as a monitoring tool for research and its use in clinical practice is still limited-in part due to a lack of standardization and transparent reporting.

Kinematic Evidence of Root-to-Shoot Signaling for the Coding of Support Thickness in Pea Plants.

Plants such as climbers characterized by stems or tendrils need to find a potential support (e.g., pole, stick, other plants or trees) to reach greater light exposure.

Reactive Exercises with Interactive Objects: Interim Analysis of a Randomized Trial on Task-Driven NMES Grasp Rehabilitation for Subacute and Early Chronic Stroke Patients.

Unlabelled: Enriched environments and tools are believed to promote grasp rehabilitation after stroke. We designed S2, an interactive grasp rehabilitation system consisting of smart objects, custom orthoses for selective grasp constraining, and an electrode array system for forearm NMES. Motor improvements and perceived usability of a new enriched upper limb training system for sub-acute stroke patients was assessed in this interim analysis.

The coding of object thickness in plants: When roots matter.

Tendrils are clasping structures used by climbing plants to anchor and support their vines that coil around suitable hosts to achieve the greatest exposure to sunlight. Although recent evidence suggests that climbing plants are able to sense the presence of a potential stimulus in the environment and to plan the tendrils' movements depending on properties such as its thickness, the mechanisms underlying thickness sensing in climbing plants have yet to be uncovered. The current research set out to use three-dimensional kinematical analysis to investigate if and in what way the root system contributed to thickness sensing.

Can Plants Move Like Animals? A Three-Dimensional Stereovision Analysis of Movement in Plants.

In this article we adapt a methodology customarily used to investigate movement in animals to study the movement of plants. The targeted movement is circumnutation, a helical organ movement widespread among plants. It is variable due to a different magnitude of the trajectory (amplitude) exhibited by the organ tip, duration of one cycle (period), circular, elliptical, pendulum-like or irregular shape and the clockwise and counterclockwise direction of rotation.

A Robotic System with EMG-Triggered Functional Eletrical Stimulation for Restoring Arm Functions in Stroke Survivors.

Background: Robotic systems combined with Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) showed promising results on upper-limb motor recovery after stroke, but adequately-sized randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are still missing.

Objective: To evaluate whether arm training supported by RETRAINER, a passive exoskeleton integrated with electromyograph-triggered functional electrical stimulation, is superior to advanced conventional therapy (ACT) of equal intensity in the recovery of arm functions, dexterity, strength, activities of daily living, and quality of life after stroke.

Methods: A single-blind RCT recruiting 72 patients was conducted.

On-line control of movement in plants.

At first glance, plants seem relatively immobile and, unlike animals, unable to interact with the surroundings or escape stressful environments. But, although markedly different from those of animals, movement pervades all aspects of plant behaviour. Here, we focused our investigation on the approaching movement of climbing plants, that is the movement they perform to reach-to-climb a support.

Early Motor Development Predicts Clinical Outcomes of Siblings at High-Risk for Autism: Insight from an Innovative Motion-Tracking Technology.

Atypical motor patterns are potential early markers and predictors of later diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This study aimed to investigate the early motor trajectories of infants at high-risk (HR) of ASD through MOVIDEA, a semi-automatic software developed to analyze 2D and 3D videos and provide objective kinematic features of their movements. MOVIDEA was developed within the Italian Network for early detection of Autism Spectrum Disorder (NIDA Network), which is currently coordinating the most extensive surveillance program for infants at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs).

Speed-accuracy trade-off in plants.

Speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) is the tendency for decision speed to covary with decision accuracy. SAT is an inescapable property of aimed movements being present in a wide range of species, from insects to primates. An aspect that remains unsolved is whether SAT extends to plants' movement.

Using UHF RFID Properties to Develop and Optimize an Upper-Limb Rehabilitation System.

Rehabilitation of the upper limb is an important aspect of the therapy for people affected by neuromotor diseases for the recovery of the capability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs). Nonetheless, the costs associated with the administration of rehabilitation therapy and the increasing number of patients highlight the need for new solutions. Technology-based solutions and, in particular, telerehabilitation could strongly impact in this field.

Movidea: A Software Package for Automatic Video Analysis of Movements in Infants at Risk for Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Early detecting the presence of neurodevelopmental disorders plays an important role in the effectiveness of the treatment. In this paper, we present a novel tool to extract motion features using single camera video recordings of infants. The Movidea software was developed to allow the operator to track the movement of end-effectors of infants in free moving conditions and extract movement features automatically.

Flexible control of movement in plants.

Although plants are essentially sessile in nature, these organisms are very much in tune with their environment and are capable of a variety of movements. This may come as a surprise to many non-botanists, but not to Charles Darwin, who reported that plants do produce movements. Following Darwin's specific interest on climbing plants, this paper will focus on the attachment mechanisms by the tendrils.

A Hybrid Robotic System for Arm Training of Stroke Survivors: Concept and First Evaluation.

Objective: To develop and evaluate a hybrid robotic system for arm recovery after stroke, combining ElectroMyoGraphic (EMG)-triggered functional electrical stimulation (FES) with a passive exoskeleton for upper limb suspension.

Methods: The system was used in a structured exercise program resembling activities of daily life. Exercises execution was continuously controlled using angle sensor data and radio-frequency identification technology.

The combined action of a passive exoskeleton and an EMG-controlled neuroprosthesis for upper limb stroke rehabilitation: First results of the RETRAINER project.

The combined use of Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) and robotic technologies is advocated to improve rehabilitation outcomes after stroke. This work describes an arm rehabilitation system developed within the European project RETRAINER. The system consists of a passive 4-degrees-of-freedom exoskeleton equipped with springs to provide gravity compensation and electromagnetic brakes to hold target positions.

Tuning of Muscle Synergies During Walking Along Rectilinear and Curvilinear Trajectories in Humans.

The aim of this study was to develop a methodology based on muscle synergies to investigate whether rectilinear and curvilinear walking shared the same neuro-motor organization, and how this organization was fine-tuned by the walking condition. Thirteen healthy subjects walked on rectilinear and curvilinear paths. Electromyographic data from thirteen back and lower-limb muscles were acquired, together with kinematic data using inertial sensors.

A multi-channel biomimetic neuroprosthesis to support treadmill gait training in stroke patients.

This study presents an innovative multi-channel neuroprosthesis that induces a biomimetic activation of the main lower-limb muscles during treadmill gait training to be used in the rehabilitation of stroke patients. The electrostimulation strategy replicates the physiological muscle synergies used by healthy subjects to walk on a treadmill at their self-selected speed. This strategy is mapped to the current gait sub-phases, which are identified in real time by a custom algorithm.