The coronavirus COVID-19 has recently started to spread rapidly in Malaysia. The number of total infected cases has increased to 3662 on 05 April 2020, leading to the country being placed under lockdown. As the main public concern is whether the current situation will continue for the next few months, this study aims to predict the epidemic peak using the Susceptible–Exposed–Infectious–Recovered (SEIR) model, with incorporation of the mortality cases. The infection rate was estimated using the Genetic Algorithm (GA), while the Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) model was used to provide short-time forecasting of the number of infected cases. The results show that the estimated infection rate is 0.228 ± 0.013, while the basic reproductive number is 2.28 ± 0.13. The epidemic peak of COVID-19 in Malaysia could be reached on 26 July 2020, with an uncertain period of 30 days (12 July–11 August). Possible interventions by the government to reduce the infection rate by 25% over two or three months would delay the epidemic peak by 30 and 46 days, respectively. The forecasting results using the ANFIS model show a low Normalized Root Mean Square Error (NRMSE) of 0.041; a low Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of 2.45%; and a high coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.9964. The results also show that an intervention has a great effect on delaying the epidemic peak and a longer intervention period would reduce the epidemic size at the peak. The study provides important information for public health providers and the government to control the COVID-19 epidemic.
The Upper Extremity Fugl Meyer Assessment (UE-FMA) is the most comprehensive assessment for pinch impairment after stroke. The pinch test of UE-FMA is manually performed by pulling a pincer object away from the patient’s fingers while providing a visual observation that results in a subjective assessment. In this study, an automated data acquisition system that consists of a linear electric actuator applying automatic pulling to the customized pincer object held by the volunteer was developed. The pinch force was measured such that a strain gauge was placed on the pincer object while pulling force was measured using pulling force load cell connected in between the linear electric actuator and customized pincer object. The pincer object’s slip onset was detected using a displacement slip sensor. The mean pinch and pulling force values at the slip onset were 12.17 and 6.25 N for right hands, while mean pinch and pulling force values were 11.67 and 5.92 N for left hands of 50 healthy volunteers, respectively. Based on the paired t-test, there is no significant difference between right and left hands. The automated data acquisition system can objectively apply a pulling force, detect the slip onset, and measure the pinch and pulling forces.
This study presents a proposed technique for displacement measurement in linear horizontal motion. The measurement system consists of a lines can sensor with built in illumination system, grating scale and an ultrasonic sensor. Once, the linescan transducer scans the grating scale optically, the displacement of the transducer is measured based on pixel shifting method. Additionally, the role of the ultrasonic sensor is to add the reference position for the linescan transducer and the current position in case of missing the position. The linescan transducer design includes; the illumination source and the division of the grating scale. The accuracy of the measurements is compared to white and infrared lights. After that, the comparison is built based on three scale divisions which are 0.5, 1 and 2 mm. Finally, the accuracy also is compared to different travelling ranges of motion. The displacement measurements of the proposed transducer is evaluated comparatively to Optiv Light Measurement (OLM) device.
Two fingers strength is an indicative measurement of pinch impairment. Conventionally, Fugl Meyer Upper Extremity Assessment (FMA-UE) is the primary standard to measure pinch strength of post-stroke survivors. In literature, the evaluation method performed by the therapist is subjective and exposed to inter-rater and intra-rater reliabilities. Recently, force-sensing resistors were implemented to measure two fingers force, but these sensors are subjected to nonlinearity, high hysteresis, and voltage drift. This paper presents a design of pinch force measurement based on the strain gauge. The pinch sensor was calibrated within a range of between 0 N to 50 N over a pinching length of 20 mm with a linearity error of 0.0123% and hysteresis of 0.513% during the loading and unloading process. The voltage drift has an average of 0.24% over 20 minutes. The pinch force measurement system reveals an objective pinch force measurements in evaluating the rehabilitation progress of post-stroke patients.
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