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Effects Of Ergonomic Worksite Changes On Risks For Cumulative Trauma Disorders Of The Upper Body In An Assembly And Press Operation Job, David B. Mahone

Theses

Cumulative trauma of the upper body is associated with a variety of individual and job factors. An effort to optimize the human-hardware interface to minimize cumulative trauma is favored. Workers in a set of jobs had complained about hand/wrist and shoulder discomfort. One job was selected for testing alternate machine controls and worksite layout. Electromyography was used to test muscle activity, and photogoniometry was used to measure posture.

For the group of ten worker-subjects, statistically significant decreases in hand/wrist and shoulder muscle activity were found. A marginal, but significant increase in neck muscle activity was also found. When one subject …

Heart Rate Variability Studies On Ambulatory Subjects Using Ekg Derived Respiration, Xiaorui Tang

Theses

Power spectral analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) provides a powerful non-invasive too] for exploring the balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic components of the autonomic nervous system. In the spectrum of HRV, there are three distinct peaks. The high frequency (HF) band (0.15 to 0.4 Hz) is correlated with parasympathetic activity and this is the band of interest 'in the study.

Two OTOUPS Of SL113jeCtS were considered in this work, stroke survivors and subjects performing an oral presentation in front of an audience. Data were collected with a Holter monitor to allow for ambulatory recording. Respiration was derived from the …

Time Domain And Frequency Domain Analysis Of Myoelectric Signals During Muscle Fatigue, Rakesh M. Maniar

Theses

Spectral analysis of the EMG signal is a useful tool for studying the complex phenomena of fatigue. The spectral parameters of mean frequency and median frequency, and the time domain parameter of root mean square have been used to measure localized fatigue.

The normal values of median frequency and its decline with fatigue have not as yet been determined in healthy subjects. This should be done in order to apply spectral analysis for clinical evaluations of abnormal populations. Normal median frequency values and its slope were established in this work for the upper extremity muscles of biceps, triceps and deltoid …

Preoperative Risk Assessment For Cardiac Surgery Using Piecewise Linear Regression Model, Arifa Zafar

Theses

In the present climate of quality assurance policies, rigorous requirements for informed consent, and a constantly changing patient population, a system of preoperative risk assignment for cardiovascular surgery was developed to monitor and evaluate surgical outcomes. The goal of this work is to estimate the preoperative risk associated with cardiac bypass surgery for patients in different risk categories. These risk categories are determined by the Parsonnet model which is based upon studying the severity of illness. The Parsonnet model assigns a risk value to a range of risk factors consisting of patient attributes and disease parameters. The aggregate of these …