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Article
Publication date: 3 January 2023

Joao Vitor da Silva Moreira, Karina Rodrigues, Daniel José Lins Leal Pinheiro, Thaís Cardoso, João Luiz Vieira, Esper Cavalheiro and Jean Faber

One of the main causes of long-term prosthetic abandonment is the lack of ownership over the prosthesis, which was caused mainly by the absence of sensory information regarding…

Abstract

Purpose

One of the main causes of long-term prosthetic abandonment is the lack of ownership over the prosthesis, which was caused mainly by the absence of sensory information regarding the lost limb. The period where the patient learns how to interact with a prosthetic device is critical in rehabilitation. This ideally happens within the first months after amputation, which is also a period associated with the consolidation of brain changes. Different studies have shown that the introduction of feedback mechanisms can be crucial to bypass the lack of sensorial information. To develop a biofeedback system for the rehabilitation of transfemoral amputees – controlled via electromyographic (EMG) activity from the leg muscles – that can provide real-time visual and/or vibratory feedback for the user.

Design/methodology/approach

The system uses surface EMG to control two feedback mechanisms, which are the knee joint of a prosthetic leg of a humanoid avatar in a virtual reality (VR) environment (visual feedback) and a matrix of 16 vibrotactile actuators placed in the back of the user (vibratory feedback). Data acquisition was inside a Faraday Cage using an OpenEphys® acquisition board for the surface EMG recordings. The tasks were performed on able-bodied participants, with no amputation, and for this, the dominant leg of the user was immobilized using an orthopedic boot fixed on the chair, allowing only isometric contractions of target muscles, according to the Surface EMG for Non-Invasive Assessment of Muscles (SENIAM) standard. The authors test the effectiveness of combining vibratory and visual feedback and how task difficulty affects overall performance.

Findings

The authors' results show no negative interference combining both feedback modalities and that performance peaked at the intermediate difficulty. These results provide powerful insights of what can be accomplished with the population of amputee people. By using this biofeedback system, the authors expect to engage another sensory modality in the process of spatial representation of a virtual leg, bypassing the lack of information associated with the disruption of afferent pathways following amputation.

Research limitations/implications

The authors developed a showcase with a new protocol and feedback mechanisms showing the protocol's safety, efficiency and reliability. However, since this system is designed for patients with leg amputation, the full extent of the effects of the biofeedback training can only be assessed after the evaluation with the amputees, and the results obtained so far establish a safe and operational protocol to accomplish this.

Practical implications

In this study, the authors proposed a new biofeedback device intended to be used in the preprosthetic rehabilitation phase for people with transfemoral amputation. With this new system, the authors propose a mechanism to bypass the lack of sensory information from a virtual prosthesis and help to assimilate visual and vibrotactile stimuli as a cue for movement representation.

Social implications

With this new system, the authors propose a mechanism to bypass the lack of sensory information from a virtual prosthesis and help to assimilate visual and vibrotactile stimuli as a cue for movement representation.

Originality/value

The authors' results show that all users were capable of recognizing both feedback modalities, both separate and combined, being able to respond accordingly throughout the tasks. The authors also show that for a one-session protocol, the last difficulty level imposed a greater challenge for most users, explained by the significant drop in performance disregarding the feedback modality. Lastly, the authors believe this paradigm can provide a better process for the embodiment of prosthetic devices, fulfilling the lack of sensory information for the users.

Details

Journal of Enabling Technologies, vol. 17 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-6263

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 November 1991

Thomas O. Nitsch

Misbegotten, misnamed, antisocial homo oeconomicus is nowcontrasted with the more human personae of homo oeconomicushonorabilis, the “open”/ “Semi‐economic Man”of Pantaleoni and…

Abstract

Misbegotten, misnamed, antisocial homo oeconomicus is now contrasted with the more human personae of homo oeconomicus honorabilis, the “open”/ “Semi‐economic Man” of Pantaleoni and Marshall, the still arcane homo oeconomicus humanus of Nitsch and Malina, and (most recently) the positivistic (neo‐) homo socio‐economicus of Etzioni et al., which ‐‐in turn – harks back to Smith′s Theory of 1759‐90. Showing the essential identity of modern economics and Aristotle′s oikonomikē, and recognising the ozone layer as pre‐eminent among once‐free but now very scarce resources (chrēmata ) that have to be utilised efficiently and administered prudently, the author joins forces with Herman Daly et al. in proposing an Aristotelian/Biblical homo oeconomus as a “Good Steward” in the spirit of Frigerio′s L′Economo Prudente (1629) and qualitative improvement over the being who has masqueraded as homo oeconomicus. Uniting this prudent conservator and caretaker of our natural endowment with “Homo Faber, the Subject‐creator of Social Economy” of an earlier work yields the antithesis of the veritable homo oeconomicus impudens of Classical‐Neoclassical infamy.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 18 no. 11/12
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1989

Stuart Hannabuss

The management of children′s literature is a search for value andsuitability. Effective policies in library and educational work arebased firmly on knowledge of materials, and on…

Abstract

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

Details

Library Management, vol. 10 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-5124

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1966

LOUGHBOROUGH was the first of the post‐war schools to be established in 1946. This resulted from negotiations of representatives of the Library Association Council with technical…

Abstract

LOUGHBOROUGH was the first of the post‐war schools to be established in 1946. This resulted from negotiations of representatives of the Library Association Council with technical and other colleges which followed their failure to secure facilities within the universities on the terms of the L.A. remaining the sole certificating body. The late Dr. Herbert Schofield accepted their terms and added a library school to already varied fields of training within his college.

Details

New Library World, vol. 67 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 March 2001

Warren Smith

This article notes the growing attractiveness of concepts “borrowed” from chaos theory in organizational studies. Many of these interpretations display sentiments broadly…

Abstract

This article notes the growing attractiveness of concepts “borrowed” from chaos theory in organizational studies. Many of these interpretations display sentiments broadly congruent with a “postmodern” approach to organization. Indeed chaos theory itself is presented as part of a similar postmodern shift within natural science. However, these sentiments have been subject to stinging criticism by scientists. Here, the deterministic underpinning of chaos theory is used to show that chaos theory is an entirely modernist enterprise. In this case the indeterministic messages taken by organizational theorists are something of a misunderstanding. Consequently, I discuss whether this is enough to threaten the interdisciplinary status of chaos theory, particularly when it is used in a self-consciously ‘metaphorical’ fashion.

Details

International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, vol. 4 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1093-4537

Book part
Publication date: 10 December 2018

Philip Miles

Abstract

Details

Midlife Creativity and Identity: Life into Art
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78754-333-1

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1966

IT is seldom that I can bring myself to write anything for publication, and as I had a longish article on “The education of librarians in Great Britain” printed as recently as…

Abstract

IT is seldom that I can bring myself to write anything for publication, and as I had a longish article on “The education of librarians in Great Britain” printed as recently as 1964 in the Lucknow Librarian (which is edited by my friend Mr. R. P. Hingorani) I had not contemplated any further effort for some time to come. But as THE LIBRARY WORLD evidently wishes to cover all the British schools of librarianship it would be a pity for Brighton to be left out, even though, coming as it does towards the end of a gruelling series, I can see little prospect of this contribution being read. Perhaps, therefore, I need not apologise for the fact that, as my own life and fortunes have been (and still are) inextricably bound up with those of the Brighton school, any account which I write of the school is bound to be a very personal one.

Details

New Library World, vol. 67 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 December 1964

National Library Week was first launched in America in the spring of 1958 with the slogan “Wake Up and Read”. It is now an established, continuing, year‐round programme to help…

Abstract

National Library Week was first launched in America in the spring of 1958 with the slogan “Wake Up and Read”. It is now an established, continuing, year‐round programme to help build a reading nation and to spur the use and improvement of libraries of all kinds. The sponsors seek the achievement of these objectives because they are the means of serving social and individual purposes that are immeasurably larger.

Details

New Library World, vol. 66 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 December 1964

NATIONAL Library Week was first launched in America in the spring of 1958 with the slogan “Wake Up and Read”. It is now an established, continuing, year‐round programme to help…

Abstract

NATIONAL Library Week was first launched in America in the spring of 1958 with the slogan “Wake Up and Read”. It is now an established, continuing, year‐round programme to help build a reading nation and to spur the use and improvement of libraries of all kinds. The sponsors seek the achievement of these objectives because they are the means of serving social and individual purposes that are immeasurably larger.

Details

New Library World, vol. 66 no. 12
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1971

Dorothy Hollingsworth

This title is stolen from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations because of the subtle significance of the change in seventeen years from the philosophy of…

Abstract

This title is stolen from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations because of the subtle significance of the change in seventeen years from the philosophy of their first study on approaches and techniques for teaching better nutrition to that of their second study, also on approaches and techniques, but this time for learning better nutrition. Jean A.S. Ritchie was the author of both studies and the change in title reflects developments in her own thought, and in the thought of others. They have developed from the idea that the teacher knows all there is to know and imparts this to the pupil to the realisation that in a complex subject like nutrition which crosses the boundaries of many other disciplines, it is not possible for any teacher to have complete and up‐to‐date knowledge and that teacher and pupil must learn together.

Details

Nutrition & Food Science, vol. 71 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0034-6659

1 – 10 of 181