Postural steadiness (sway) is used to evaluate the dynamics of the postural control system associated with maintenance of balance during standing. Recently, the chaotic behavior of many biomechanical systems has been examined using Lyapunov exponents, fractal dimension or attractor plot (reconstructed phase portrait). The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of physical workload on postural stability during load holding task by measuring sway of center of pressure (COP). The experimental variables were weight of load (10kg, 15kg, and 20kg) and height of holding a load (50cm, 70cm, and 90cm). Ten male subjects participated in a repeated measures experiment in which 9 lifts were performed. The time of holding a load was for 10sec. The sampling interval was 1msec. The basic measures of postural stability (mean distance of the COP, mean velocity of the COP, and sway area) and the chaotic measures (fractal dimension and first Lyapunov exponent) of the COP were calculated. When the holding height increased, the mean velocity of the COP tended to increase but the first Lyapunov exponent of the COP decreased. On the other hand, the fractal dimension of the COP decreased with the increase in load weight. From the above results, it was clarified that physical workloads (load weight and holding height) affect the chaotic measures of the COP. It was implied that the physical workload can be measured by the chaotic features of the COP.
Purpose: To describe the epidemiology of the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in a Brazilian ICU.Methods: This prospective observational, non-interventional study, included all consecutive patients with ARDS criteria [1] admitted in the ICU of a Brazilian tertiary hospital, between January 1997 and September 2001.Were collected in a prospective fashion the following variables: age, gender, APACHE II score at ICU admission and at ARDS diagnosis, cause of ARDS, presence of AIDS, cancer and immunosuppression, occurrence of barotrauma, performance of traqueostomy, mortality, duration of mechanical ventilation (MV), length of stay (LOS) in ICU and in hospital.The lung injury score (LIS) [2] was used to quantify the degree of pulmonary injury in the first week of ARDS.Results: There was 2182 patients (P) admitted in ICU during the study period, of whom 141 (6.46%) had ARDS criteria.Seventy-six (54%) were men, the mean age was 46 ± 18 years, APACHE II 18 ± 7 and 19 ± 7 at admission and at ARDS diagnosis, respectively.Septic shock accounted for 42% (60 P) of the ARDS causes, sepsis 22% (31 P), diffuse pulmonary infection 16% (23 P), aspiration pneumonia 11% (15 P), non-septic shock 5% (7 P) and others 4% (5 P).Ten percent (14 P) had AIDS, 30% (43 P) cancer and 25% (36 P) immunosuppression.All patients were mechanically ventilated with Tidal Volume between 4 and 8 ml/kg.Only 3.5% (5 P) had barotrauma and 10% (14 P) performed traqueostomy.Mortality rate was 79% in the ICU.The patients required 12 ± 10 days on MV, ranging from 1 to 55 days.The LOS in ICU and hospital was 14 ± 13 (1-69) days and 28 ± 32 (1-325) days, respectively.There was a time delay of 3.7 ± 4.5 days between admission in ICU and the onset of ARDS.The Murray score (mean ± SD) was 3.2 ± 0.4, 3 ± 0.5, 3 ± 0.5, 2.9 ± 0.6, 2.8 ± 0.7, 2.7 ± 0.7 and 2.6 ± 0.8 in the first 7 days, respectively.Conclusions: ARDS in our hospital has a similar incidence of reports in the USA and Europe.There was a higher mortality, which could be explained by a high incidence of infection causes of ARDS, mainly septic shock, and elevated combined occurrence of AIDS, cancer and immunosuppression, along the degree of LIS.The incidence of barotrauma was low, as a consequence of the current mechanical ventilation strategies.
Traffic accidents occur due to inattentive driving such as drowsy driving. A variety of support systems that make an attempt to prevent inattentive driving are under development. The development of a system to prevent drowsy driving using auditory or tactile alarm system is undertaken. It is essential to detect the low arousal state and warn drivers of such a state so that drowsy can be prevented. EEG (Electroencephalography) was used to evaluate how an arousal level degraded with time for eight participants under a low arousal level. Mean power frequency (MPF) was calculated to evaluate an arousal level. The value of MPF was compared between high and low arousal levels. The difference of arousal effect among four warning sounds was examined. As a result, there was no significant difference of arousal effect among four alarm sounds. The alarm sound was found to temporarily heighten participants' arousal level.
In order to get insight into the prevention of violation-based human errors or accidents, loss aversion was discussed in detail.We paid attention to the way of earning money, and two ways of earning money were assumed in the experiment.The two ways of earning money included: (1) earn by oneself, (2) happen to get money by a lottery or in a prize.For these two cases, an attempt was made to evaluate the feelings of gain and loss using ME (magnitude estimation) method.On the basis of such an experiment, it was discussed how the extent of loss aversion differed according to the amount of value added to money (gain or loss).It was experimentally verified that we dislike losses more than we like commensurate gains.In other words, our feeling (regret) or attitude to the loss of some money ($X) was larger than our feeling (pleasure) to the same gain of money ($X).Moreover, such a difference was found to differ between situations under which gain or loss was induced.The difference of feeling between loss and gain was larger when the money was earned by oneself than when the money was earned by coincidence.When the money was incidentally got by a lottery or in a prize, the difference of feeling (value) between gain and loss was not so large as pointed out in prospect theory.
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