The findings suggest that AOT can be beneficial in enhancing walking ability of patients with post-stroke hemiparesis, and may be clinically feasible as a practical adjunct to routine rehabilitation therapy. A power calculation on our data showed that 20 subjects in each group were required for further definitive studies.

No abstract

Starch/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) blend films were prepared by using corn starch, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), glycerol (GL), and citric acid (CA) as additives and glutaraldehyde (GLU) as crosslinking agent for the mixing process. The additives, drying temperature, and the influence of crosslinker of films on the properties of the films were investigated. The mechanical properties, tensile strength (TS), elongation at break (% E), degree of swelling (DS), and solubility (S) of starch/PVA blend film were examined adding GL and CA as additives. At all measurement results, except for DS, the film adding CA was better than GL because hydrogen bonding at the presence of CA with hydroxyl group and carboxyl group increased the inter/ intramolecular interaction between starch, PVA, and additives. CA improves the properties of starch/PVA blend film compared with GL. TS, % E, DS, and S of film adding GLU as crosslinking agent were examined. With increasing GLU contents, TS increases but % E, DS, and S value of GL-added and CA-added films decrease. When the film was dried at low temperature, the physical properties of the films were clearly improved because the hydrogen bonding was activated at low temperature.

We report on the physical properties of films synthesized with native corn starch (NCS) and resistant starch (RS4) prepared with NCS. NCS and RS4/poly(-vinyl alcohol) (PVA) blend films were synthesized with a mixing process and casting method. Glycerol (GL) and citric acid (CA) were used as additives. Glutaraldehyde (GLU) was used as a crosslinking agent of the films. RS4 was synthesized with sodium trimetaphosphate and sodium tripolyphosphate as a crosslinker. Then, the RS4 thus synthesized was confirmed by the pancreatin-gravimetry method, swelling power, differential scanning calorimetry, and X-ray diffraction. The tensile strength, elongation, swelling behavior, and solubility of the films were measured. The results of the measurements indicated that the RS4-added film was better than the NCS-added film. In particular, the RS4/PVA blend film with CA as an additive showed physical properties superior to those of the other films. Also, the physical properties with GLU added as a crosslinking agent to the films were investigated. With increasing GLU contents, the tensile strength increased but the elongation, swelling behavior, and solubility values of the GL-added and CA-added films decreased.

The effects of additives with different functional groups, that is, hydroxyl and carboxyl groups, on the physical properties of starch/PVA blend films were examined. Starch/PVA blend films were prepared by the mixing process. Glycerol (GL) with 3 hydroxyl groups, succinic acid (SA) with 2 carboxyl groups, malic acid (MA) with 1 hydroxyl and 2 carboxyl groups, and tartaric acid (TA) with 2 hydroxyl and 2 carboxyl groups were used as additives. The results of measured tensile strength and elongation verified that hydroxyl and carboxyl groups as functional groups increased the flexibility and strength of the film. The degree of swelling (DS) and solubility (S) of the GL/SA-added films were low. However, the DS and S of the films with added MA or TA with both hydroxyl and carboxyl groups were comparatively high. When the film was dried at low temperature, the properties of the films evidently improved, probably because hydrogen bonding was activated at low temperature.