Usability Assessment of Body Controlled Electric Hand Prostheses: A Pilot Study.

Poly-articulated hands, actuated by multiple motors and controlled by surface myoelectric technologies, represent the most advanced aids among commercial prostheses. However, simple hook-like body-powered solutions are still preferred for their robustness and control reliability, especially for challenging environments (such as those encountered in manual work or developing countries). This study presents the mechatronic implementation and the usability assessment of the SoftHand Pro-Hybrid, a family of poly-articulated, electrically-actuated, and body-controlled artificial hands, which combines the main advantages of both body-powered and myoelectric systems in a single device.

A novel mechatronic system for evaluating elbow muscular spasticity relying on Tonic Stretch Reflex Threshold estimation.

Muscular spasticity represents one of the most common motor disorder associated to lesions of the Central Nervous System, such as Stroke, and affects joint mobility up to the complete prevention of skeletal muscle voluntary control. Its clinical evaluation is hence of fundamental relevance for an effective rehabilitation of the affected subjects. Standard assessment protocols are usually manually performed by humans, and hence their reliability strongly depends on the capabilities of the clinical operator performing the procedures.

Heart rate variability analysis during muscle fatigue due to prolonged isometric contraction.

Fatigue can be defined as the muscular condition occurring before the inability to perform a task. It can be assessed through the evaluation of the median and mean frequency of the spectrum of the surface electromyography series. Previous studies investigated the relationship between heartbeat dynamics and muscular activity.

Muscle fatigue assessment through electrodermal activity analysis during isometric contraction.

We studied the effects of muscle fatigue on the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) dynamics. Specifically, we monitored the electrodermal activity (EDA) on 32 healthy subjects performing isometric biceps contraction. As assessed by means of an electromyography (EMG) analysis, 15 subjects showed muscle fatigue and 17 did not.

Natural transmission of USP9Y gene mutations: a new perspective on the role of AZFa genes in male fertility.

Deletions of the azoospermia factor (AZF) regions of the Y chromosome are associated with severe spermatogenic failure and represent the most frequent molecular genetic cause of azoospermia and severe oligozoospermia. The exact role of the candidate AZF genes is largely unknown due to both the extreme rarity of naturally occurring AZF gene-specific mutations and the lack of functional assays. Here, we report the fine characterization of two different deletions in the USP9Y gene (one of the two candidate genes in the AZFa region), which have been transmitted through natural conception in two unrelated families.