Methodology For Performing Whole Body Pmhs Underbody Blast Impact Testing, And The Corresponding Response Of The Hybrid Iii Dummy And The Finite Element Dummy Model Under Similar Loading Condition, Karthik Somasundaram

Wayne State University Theses

In recent wars, the use of improvised explosive devices and landmines has dramatically increased as a tactical measure to counter armored vehicles. These weapons not only deform and damage the vehicle structure but also produce serious vertical deceleration injuries to mounted occupants. The reported injury patterns largely differ from those in an automotive crash and are often more severe than those in other vertical loading scenarios such as pilot seat ejection, helicopter crash, parachute landing and fall from height. High kinetic energy predominately along the principal vertical (Z-axis) over a short duration makes the underbody blast (UBB) loading conditions unique …

The Effect Of Training Older Adults In Tai Chi And Compensatory Stepping On Balance Control, Hannah L. Moore Miss

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Abstract

Introduction: In Canadian society, there is a growing prevalence of older adults and one of the main problems facing this generation today is the risk of falling. Tai Chi (TC) is a martial art that has demonstrated improvements in balance control. It uses a series of fluid movements that engage head, neck and trunk rotation while simultaneously reducing base of support. In addition, it has been demonstrated that training older adults by administering unpredictable perturbations to challenge balance better equips them to react successfully in response to balance perturbations. This study aims to determine the potential balance specific benefits …

Oncology Section Edge Task Force On Breast Cancer Outcomes: A Systematic Review Of Outcome Measures For Functional Mobility, Mary Insana Fisher, Jeannette Lee, Claire Davies, Hannah Geyer, Genevieve Colon, Lucinda Pfalzer

Physical Therapy Faculty Publications

Background: Breast cancer treatments in women with breast cancer often result in physical impairments that lead to activity limitations and participation restrictions. These limitations and restrictions manifest in impaired functional mobility skills that may impact survivorship. Thus, evaluation of functional mobility is an important part of survivorship care.

Purpose: To identify functional mobility outcome measures that possess strong psychometric properties and are clinically useful for examination of women treated for breast cancer.

Methods: Multiple electronic databases were searched for articles published after 1995. Studies were included if they reported psychometric properties, used clinically feasible methods, were performed on adults, and …

The Effects Of Home-Based Pilates In Healthy College-Age Females, Betsy Donahoe-Fillmore, Mary Insana Fisher, C. Jayne Brahler

Physical Therapy Faculty Publications

Objectives: To quantify and determine the effects of Pilates on core endurance, hamstring flexibility, balance, body composition/mass and perceived stress level in healthy college age females.

Study Design: Randomized controlled trial design.

Background: Emerging research on the Pilates technique is inconclusive regarding benefits to core endurance, flexibility, balance, body mass, and perceived stress.

Methods and Measures: Female college students (n=57; 18-35 years old) were randomly assigned to a Pilates group, who exercised at home with a DVD, or a control group who did not engage in Pilates practice. Core endurance, hamstring flexibility, balance, body composition and stress measurements were taken …

Flow Through The Nasal Cavity Of The Spiny Dogfish, Squalus Acanthias, L. L. Timm-Davis, Frank E. Fish

Biology Faculty Publications

The nasal cavity of spiny dogfish is a blind capsule with no internal connection to the oral cavity. Water is envisioned to flow through the cavity in a smooth, continuous flow pattern; however, this assumption is based on previous descriptions of the morphology of the olfactory cavity. No experimentation on the flow through the internal nasal cavity has been reported. Morphology of the head of the spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) does not suggest a close external connection between the oral and nasal systems. However, dye visualization showed that there was flow through the nasal apparatus and from the excurrent nostril …

Trunk Postural Control In Unstable Sitting: Effect Of Sex And Low Back Pain Status, Christian Larivière, Dany H. Gagnon, Hakim Mecheri

Études primaires

Background

Adequate neuromuscular control of the lumbar spine is required to prevent lumbar injuries. A trunk postural control test protocol, controlling for the influence of body size on performance, was implemented to carry out between-subject comparisons. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of sex and low back pain status with the use of two measures of trunk postural control, the first based on chair motion, and the second based on trunk motion.

Methods

Thirty-six subjects (with and without low back pain) performed three 60-s trunk postural control trials with their eyes closed while seated on an …

An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Axonal Injury, Biomarker Expression And Mechanical Response In A Rodent Head Impact Acceleration Model, Yan Li

Wayne State University Dissertations

In the United States 1.4 million people sustain traumatic brain injury (TBI) each year, resulting in 235,000 hospitalizations and 50,000 fatalities annually. Traumatic axonal injury (TAI) is a serious outcome of TBI that accounts for 40-50% of hospitalizations due to head injury and one third of the mortality due to TBI, and it is difficult to diagnose and evaluate. The purpose of this dissertation is to determine mechanical injury predictors for TAI and identify potential biomarkers to evaluate TAI.

In this dissertation, a modified Marmarou impact acceleration injury model was developed to allow the monitoring of velocity of the impactor …

Influence Of Planning Resources On Gait Control In Parkinson’S Disease, Frederico P. Faria

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Movement disturbances in individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have been associated with difficulties to plan complex actions. Performance of simple and complex actions overloads resources for individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, it is unclear if central resources required to plan gait adjustments while walking exacerbate gait disturbances of patients with PD. More specifically, it is unclear how gait impairments, sensory processing, and the dopaminergic system influence the load on processing resources (e.g. cognitive load) during the planning of step modifications. In order to investigate the relative influence of these factors on cognitive load and its impact on gait control, …

Identification Of Intrinsic And Reflexive Contributions To Low-Back Stiffness: Medium-Term Reliability And Construct Validity, Christian Lariviere, Daniel Ludvig, Robert Kearney, Hakim Mecheri, Jean-Maxime Caron, Richard Preuss

Études primaires

This study aimed at testing the reliability and construct validity of a trunk perturbation protocol (TPP) that estimates the intrinsic and reflexive contributions to low-back stiffness. The TPP consists of a series of pseudorandom position-controlled trunk perturbations in an apparatus measuring forces and displacements at the harness surrounding the thorax. Intrinsic and reflexive contributions to low-back stiffness were estimated using a system identification procedure, leading to 12 parameters. Study 1 methods (reliability): 30 subjects performed five 75- s trials, on each of two separate days (eight weeks apart). Reliability was assessed using the generalizability theory, which allowed computing indexes of …

Investigating The Effects Of Biochemical And Biophysical Signals On Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Differentiation, Ruikai Chen

All Dissertations

In blood vessel engineering, an optimal bioartifical scaffold can be characterized as a 3D tubular structure with high porosity for nutrient diffusion and enough mechanical strength to sustain in vivo dynamic environment. The luminal surface of the scaffold is supposed to have a continuous layer of endothelial cell that is ideally non-immunogenic and non-thrombogenic while the media layer of the construct is assigned for the ingrowth of vascular smooth muscle cell which can provide structural integrity and contractility. While reconstructing endothelial cell layer has been at the center of interest in most polymeric vascular replacements related research, growing VSMCs has …

Putting Reins On The Brain. How The Body And Environment Use It, Dobromir Dotov

Journal Articles

Radical embodied cognitive neuroscience (RECN) will probably rely on dynamical systems theory (DST) and complex systems theory for methods and formalism. Yet, there have been plenty of non-radical neurodynamicists out there for quite some time. How much of their work fits with radical embodied cognitive science, what do they need RECN for, and what are the inconsistencies between RECN and established neurodynamics that would have to be resolved? This paper is both theoretical hypothesis and review. First, it provides a brief overview of the typical, purely structural considerations why the central nervous systems (CNS) should be treated as a nonlinear …

Effects Of Yoga On Arm Volume Among Women With Breast Cancer Related Lymphedema: A Pilot Study, Mary Insana Fisher, Betsy Donahoe-Fillmore, Laura Leach, Colleen O'Malley, Cheryl Paeplow, Tess Prescott, Harold L. Merriman

Physical Therapy Faculty Publications

Lymphedema affects 3–58% of survivors of breast cancer and can result in upper extremity impairments. Exercise can be beneficial in managing lymphedema. Yoga practice has been minimally studied for its effects on breast cancer related lymphedema (BCRL). The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of yoga on arm volume, quality of life (QOL), self-reported arm function, and hand grip strength in women with BCRL. Six women with BCRL participated in modified Hatha yoga 3×/week for 8 weeks. Compression sleeves were worn during yoga sessions. Arm volume, QOL, self-reported arm function, and hand grip strength were measured at …

A Comparative Assessment Of Hand Preference In Captive Red Howler Monkeys, Alouatta Seniculus And Yellow-Breasted Capuchin Monkeys, Sapajus Xanthosternos, Nasibah Sfar, Madhur Mangalam, Werner Kaumanns, Mewa Singh

Journal Articles

There are two major theories that attempt to explain hand preference in non-human primates–the ‘task complexity’ theory and the ‘postural origins’ theory. In the present study, we proposed a third hypothesis to explain the evolutionary origin of hand preference in non-human primates, stating that it could have evolved owing to structural and functional adaptations to feeding, which we refer to as the ‘niche structure’ hypothesis. We attempted to explore this hypothesis by comparing hand preference across species that differ in the feeding ecology and niche structure: red howler monkeys, Alouatta seniculus and yellow-breasted capuchin monkeys, Sapajus xanthosternos. The red …

University Of Nebraska At Omaha Biomechanics Research Building Annual Report, Fall 2014, Biomechanics Research Building

Biomechanics Annual Report

This annual report features:

Letter from the Directer; COBRE Grant Press Release

Updates - Our New Building; Visitors; Moving on Up; Why Choose BRB as a Student?; Where Are They Now?; From the Bench to the Market

Projects - Neuroscience; NASA: Stimulation of the Sensory System; Motor Development; Variability Studies; Path Integration; Peripheral Artery Disease and Aging

Other Content - Beyond our Borders; Journal Club; Awards; Faculty Travels; Conferences; NE Science Fest; Campaign for Nebraska

Locomotor Sensory Organization Test: A Novel Paradigm For The Assessment Of Sensory Contributions In Gait, Jung Hung Chien, Diderik-Jan Eikema, Mukul Mukherjee, Nicholas Stergiou

Journal Articles

Feedback based balance control requires the integration of visual, proprioceptive and vestibular input to detect the body’s movement within the environment. When the accuracy of sensory signals is compromised, the system reorganizes the relative contributions through a process of sensory recalibration, for upright postural stability to be maintained. Whereas this process has been studied extensively in standing using the Sensory Organization Test (SOT), less is known about these processes in more dynamic tasks such as locomotion. In the present study, ten healthy young adults performed the six conditions of the traditional SOT to quantify standing postural control when exposed to …

Motor Output Structure In Targeted Aiming: A Mechanistic Model, Dale Lewis, Roger Young, Jeffrey Eder, Andrew B, Slifkin

Undergraduate Research Posters 2014

Studies using a variety of experimental tasks have established that when humans repeatedly produce an action, fluctuations in action output are highest at the lowest frequencies and fluctuation magnitude (power) systematically declines as frequency increases. Such time series structure is termed pink noise. However, the appearance of pink noise seems to be limited to tasks where action is executed in the absence of task-related feedback. A few studies have demonstrated that when action was executed in the presence of task-related feedback, power was evenly distributed across all spectral frequencies—i.e., white noise was revealed. Here, participants produced cyclical aiming movements under …

Gaze And Posture Coordinate Differently With The Complexity Of Visual Stimulus Motion, Joshua L. Haworth, Srikant Vallabhajosula, Nikolaos Stergiou

Journal Articles

In this study, we explored whether gaze and posture would exhibit coordination with the motion of a presented visual stimulus, specifically with regard to the complexity of the motion structure. Fourteen healthy adults viewed a set of four visual stimulus motion conditions, in both self-selected and semi-tandem stance, during which the stimulus moved horizontally across a screen, with position updated to follow a sine, chaos, surrogate, or random noise trajectory. Posture was measured using a standard force platform in self-selected and semi-tandem stance conditions while gaze was recorded using image-based eye-tracking equipment. Cross-correlation confirmed the continuous coordination of gaze with …

Locomotor Sensory Organization Test: A Novel Paradigm For The Assessment Of Sensory Contributions In Gait, Jung Hung Chien, Diderik Jan Anthony Eikema, Mukul Mukherjee, Nikolaos Stergiou

Journal Articles

Feedback based balance control requires the integration of visual, proprioceptive and vestibular input to detect the body’s movement within the environment. When the accuracy of sensory signals is compromised, the system reorganizes the relative contributions through a process of sensory recalibration, for upright postural stability to be maintained. Whereas this process has been studied extensively in standing using the Sensory Organization Test (SOT), less is known about these processes in more dynamic tasks such as locomotion. In the present study, ten healthy young adults performed the six conditions of the traditional SOT to quantify standing postural control when exposed to …

Lower Extremity Injury In Female Basketball Players Is Related To A Large Difference In Peak Eversion Torque Between Barefoot And Shod Conditions, Jenna M. Yentes, Max J. Kurz, Nikolaos Stergiou

Journal Articles

Background
The majority of injuries reported in female basketball players are ankle sprains and mechanisms leading to injury have been debated. Investigations into muscular imbalances in barefoot versus shod conditions and their relationship with injury severity have not been performed. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of wearing athletic shoes on muscular strength and its relationship to lower extremity injuries, specifically female basketball players due to the high incidence of ankle injuries in this population.

Methods
During pre-season, 11 female collegiate basketball players underwent inversion and eversion muscle strength testing using an isokinetic dynamometer in both …

How Sensitive Is The Deltoid Moment Arm To Joint Center Changes With Rtsa?, David Walker, Allison Kinney, Aimee Struk, Benjamin J. Fregly, Thomas Wright, Scott Banks

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

The goal of this study was to assess the sensitivity of the deltoid muscle moment arms as a function of joint configuration for an existing RTSA subject. High variations were found for all three deltoid components. Variation over the entire abduction arc was greatest in the anterior and lateral deltoid, while the posterior deltoid moment arm was mostly sensitive to joint center changes early in the abduction arc. Moment arm changes of 10-16mm represent a significant amount of the total deltoid moment arm. This means there is an opportunity to dramatically change the deltoid moments arms through surgical placement of …