Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Firing unit'

Thesis (Masters Diploma (Electrical Engineering)--Cape Technikon, Cape Town, 1988
The subject of this thesis is the development of ahighly ruggedised, reliable electronic circuit. The circuit is to be used for the initiation of fuze heads and to charge a capacitor for later use in apyrotechnic chain. This circuit and its associated packaging will be called the firing unit. The thesis can be broadly divided into the following facets. I. The definition study, which defines what is needed and proposed means of achieving the customer requirements. 11. The design of the electronic circuitry in the system. Ii!. The design of the packaging containing the electronics. Iv. Adaptation of environmental testing, to verify system design. V. Implementation of environmental testing. Vi. Reliability analysis. Vii. Failure analysis and the determination of the effect of the supposed failure. Actions vto vii were used as inputs to improve 11 and ill, so achieving optimum performance and safety. The whole system was designed with the overriding objective of reliability and safety of personnel and equipment.

Muscle force is regulated by varying two main motor unit properties: the recruitment and the firing rates of motor units. Discrepancies still exist on the mechanisms involved in motor unit control and muscle force generation. This study investigated the behavior of motor unit firing rate during sustained fatiguing contractions and the motor unit parameters that are most likely to influence force fluctuation increase. We also studied the firing rate of motor units during linearly increasing force contractions up to maximum, or near maximum voluntary contraction force, at different rates of force increase, and developed an equation that models the firing rate behavior as a function of increasing excitation to the motor unit pool. Results were used to create a model of muscle force production that is based on verifiable physiological concepts and data. The model also includes the concept of common drive, i.e. of an oscillatory common input received by all motor units in the motor unit pool, the time-dependent changes of motor unit twitches, and a feedback loop to simulate force generation in a target-force tracking mode. Simulations showed that the model is able to mimic the force and firing rate patterns which have been experimentally observed during repeated contractions sustained to exhaustion: the excitation to the motoneuron pool must be adjusted in response to an increased or decreased force generation capacity of the muscle fibers, and the firing rates of all motor units respond consequently with a decreased or increased firing rate. The simulation of prolonged contractions showed that the increase in force variability may be attributed to the gradual recruitment of higherrecruitment threshold larger-amplitude force twitch motor units. The level of cross-correlation between firing rates appeared to influence force variability, whereas the variability in the firing rates had no clear effect on force variability.
Il controllo della forza muscolare si basa principalmente su due fenomeni: il reclutamento di unità motorie e la regolazione della loro frequenza di scarica. Molti aspetti riguardanti i meccanismi coinvolti nel controllo delle unità motorie e nella generazione di forza muscolare restano ancora da investigare. Parte del lavoro di questa tesi ha riguardato lo studio del comportamento della frequenza di scarica delle unità motorie e dei parametri alla base dell’incremento delle fluttuazioni dell’output di forza durante l’esecuzione di contrazioni muscolari sostenute fino all’affaticamento. Inoltre, è stato analizzato il comportamento della frequenza di scarica delle unità motorie durante lo svolgimento di contrazioni muscolari a livelli di forza crescente fino alla massima forza di contrazione volontaria (a diverse velocità di incremento della forza); ed è stata messa a punto una equazione in grado di modellare il comportamento della frequenza di scarica in funzione dell’eccitazione ricevuta dal pool di unità motorie. I risultati di questa prima analisi sono serviti per creare un modello di produzione della forza muscolare basato su dati fisiologici verificabili. Il modello include il concetto di “common drive”, ovvero di un input oscillatorio comune ricevuto da tutte le unità motorie del pool; la dipendenza temporale dei “twitch” di forza delle unità motorie; ed un “feedback loop” per simulare la generazione di forza in contrazioni in “target-force tracking mode”. Si è dimostrato come il modello sviluppato sia in grado di simulare il pattern di forza e il comportamento delle unità motorie sperimentalmente osservati durante l’esecuzione di contrazioni prolungate e sostenute fino all’affaticamento. In particolare, si è potuto osservare come l’eccitazione ricevuta dal pool di unità motorie si modifichi in seguito ad un aumento o ad una diminuzione della capacità di produrre forza delle fibre muscolari e come la variazione dell’eccitazione comporti di conseguenza una diminuzione o un aumento della frequenza di scarica delle unità motorie e del numero di unità motorie attive. La simulazione di contrazioni muscolari prolungate ha anche evidenziato come la crescente variabilità della forza muscolare sia da attribuire al reclutamento di unità motorie caratterizzate da “twitch” di ampiezza maggiore e da un maggiore grado di cross-correlazione tra la frequenza di scarica delle unità motorie attive, mentre la variabilità della frequenza di scarica non sembra influire sull’output di forza.

EMG signal decomposition is the process of resolving a composite EMG signal into its constituent motor unit potential trains (classes) and it can be configured as a classification problem. An EMG signal detected by the tip of an inserted needle electrode is the superposition of the individual electrical contributions of the different motor units that are active, during a muscle contraction, and background interference.
This thesis addresses the process of EMG signal decomposition by developing an interactive classification system, which uses multiple classifier fusion techniques in order to achieve improved classification performance. The developed system combines heterogeneous sets of base classifier ensembles of different kinds and employs either a one level classifier fusion scheme or a hybrid classifier fusion approach.
The hybrid classifier fusion approach is applied as a two-stage combination process that uses a new aggregator module which consists of two combiners: the first at the abstract level of classifier fusion and the other at the measurement level of classifier fusion such that it uses both combiners in a complementary manner. Both combiners may be either data independent or the first combiner data independent and the second data dependent. For the purpose of experimentation, we used as first combiner the majority voting scheme, while we used as the second combiner one of the fixed combination rules behaving as a data independent combiner or the fuzzy integral with the lambda-fuzzy measure as an implicit data dependent combiner.
Once the set of motor unit potential trains are generated by the classifier fusion system, the firing pattern consistency statistics for each train are calculated to detect classification errors in an adaptive fashion. This firing pattern analysis allows the algorithm to modify the threshold of assertion required for assignment of a motor unit potential classification individually for each train based on an expectation of erroneous assignments.
The classifier ensembles consist of a set of different versions of the Certainty classifier, a set of classifiers based on the nearest neighbour decision rule: the fuzzy k-NN and the adaptive fuzzy k-NN classifiers, and a set of classifiers that use a correlation measure as an estimation of the degree of similarity between a pattern and a class template: the matched template filter classifiers and its adaptive counterpart. The base classifiers, besides being of different kinds, utilize different types of features and their performances were investigated using both real and simulated EMG signals of different complexities. The feature sets extracted include time-domain data, first- and second-order discrete derivative data, and wavelet-domain data.
Following the so-called overproduce and choose strategy to classifier ensemble combination, the developed system allows the construction of a large set of candidate base classifiers and then chooses, from the base classifiers pool, subsets of specified number of classifiers to form candidate classifier ensembles. The system then selects the classifier ensemble having the maximum degree of agreement by exploiting a diversity measure for designing classifier teams. The kappa statistic is used as the diversity measure to estimate the level of agreement between the base classifier outputs, i. e. , to measure the degree of decision similarity between the base classifiers. This mechanism of choosing the team's classifiers based on assessing the classifier agreement throughout all the trains and the unassigned category is applied during the one level classifier fusion scheme and the first combiner in the hybrid classifier fusion approach. For the second combiner in the hybrid classifier fusion approach, we choose team classifiers also based on kappa statistics but by assessing the classifiers agreement only across the unassigned category and choose those base classifiers having the minimum agreement.
Performance of the developed classifier fusion system, in both of its variants, i. e. , the one level scheme and the hybrid approach was evaluated using synthetic simulated signals of known properties and real signals and then compared it with the performance of the constituent base classifiers. Across the EMG signal data sets used, the hybrid approach had better average classification performance overall, specially in terms of reducing the number of classification errors.

In questa tesi, sono state realizzate tre diverse board: un DC-DC per il supply, un control unit per programmare i segnali d'ingresso del driver, un firing unit che contiene il chip principale(driver e GaN). Abbiamo usato il nitruro di galio perché è meglio adatto del silicio ad alte frequenze. L'obbiettivo principale è di raggiungere 50A di picco di corrente con soli 5ns di pulse. Sono stati usati Altium design per il disegno delle board e Ansys per l'evaluazione delle induttanze parassite. Questo ultimo crea diversi problemi e può limitare il raggiungimento del picco di corrente. Quindi bisogna fare il layout tenendo molta attenzione ai parassiti
In our three years of work, we have achieved the realization of a Firing unit board with the GaN and driver in a system in package. Three different boards were realized: A first board with only the resistor, the second one with the resistor and a shunt resistor and a third board with the laser diode and a shunt resistor. A DC-DC was realized for the supply while a control unit was realized for the control of the input signals of the driver.Unfortunately, no measurements of the firing unit have been done yet as we are still waiting for the chip to be completed. The DC-DC and the control unit board have been measured and tested. LIDAR application is the most attractive and efficient solution for this market. The challenges of LIDAR application consist in the development of the electronics generating a current pulse of 50A that lasts for less than 5ns. The technical area of this activity is fully autonomous self-driving car, and in particular what helps an autonomous vehicle to understand the world around it.

Ongoing research studying the underlying mechanism and prevalence of Persistent Inward Currents (PICs) has posed a challenge to the conventional view that the firing rate of a motor unit is proportional to the amount of synaptic input it receives. Near the time of human motor unit recruitment during isometric muscle contraction, a sudden steep rise in firing rate is observed, which is suggested to result from rapid triggering of PICs, an intrinsic property of motor neurons. In evaluating the time constants associated with these steep rises in firing rate across different contractile speeds, it has been found that the time course of the steep rise is dependent on the time course of muscle contraction. This evidence suggests that the mechanism underlying this steep rise in firing rate is not PIC-associated, but rather depends on an alternate, unknown mechanism.

Gli ultimi anni dell'opera di Le Corbusier si presentano come i più controversi, offrendo un panorama che spazia dalla realizzazione alla disillusione, dall'incomprensione al riconoscimento internazionale. La tesi affronta quest'articolata produzione sotto molteplici punti di vista, cercando di operare una duplice lettura: una sincronica trasversalmente ai vari campi della sua attività, l'altra diacronica rispetto ai singoli temi. Il periodo 1957-1965 è studiato prendendo in considerazione l'opera artistica, gli scritti, la teoria urbanistica, i progetti non realizzati e l'architettura. In particolare, oggetto di grande attenzione è il "metodo operativo" di Le Corbusier: dall' idea all'architettura. Entrano in gioco, in questa fase, documenti inediti ed interviste ad allievi ed ex-collaboratori, tra i quali: Roger Aujame, Fernand Gardien, José Oubrerie, Claude Parent, Robert Rebutato, André Wogenscky, Dominique Claudius-Petit, fils d'Eugène Claudius-Petit. Particolare attenzione è data alle architetture di Firminy, inquadrate come un possibile frammento della sua urbanistica. La Maison de la Culture, lo stade, l'Unité d'Habitation e l'église de Saint-Pierre sono lette analiticamente: dall'idea originaria all'iter di elaborazione in atelier, dal cantiere alla realizzazione; ed oltre, affrotando la problematica vita di questi edifici dopo il completamento, i diversi interventi di restauro condotti ed in corso, ed i progetti futuri. In particolare, il completamento, i diversi interventi di restauro condotti ed in corso, ed i progetti futuri. In particolare, il completamento dell'église de Saint-Pierre è stato seguito in tempo reale, tra il 2003 e il 2006, a contatto con i progettisti, il cantiere e le imprese
Les derniers ans de l'oeuvre de Le Corbusier sont parmi les plus controversé de sa vie, y sont mélangés indissolublement: accomplissement et désillusion, incompréhension et célébrité. La thèse étudie cette production si articulée à partir de deux modalités d'analyse: une synchronique, transversalement aux différents domaines de son activité, l'autre diachronique par rapport à chaque thème de recherche. La période 1957-1965 est étudiée sous multiples points de vue: l'oeuvre plastique, les livres, les théories d'urbanisme, les projets réalisés et non. Dans cette complexité, l'étude de la "méthode de travail" de Le Corbusier s'est avérée être un passage décisif pour comprendre l'évolution qui conduit de l'idée à l'architecture. Nombreux entretiens avec anciens élèves et collaborateurs de Le Corbusier ont été conduits, notamment avec: Roger Aujame, Fernand Gardien, José Oubrerie, Claude Parent, Robert Rebutato, André Wogenscky, Dominique Claudius-Petit, fils d'Eugène Claudius-Petit. L'ensemble d'architectures de Le Corbusier à Firminy occupe un rôle de premier plan dans l'étude, soit sur le plan d'urbanisme, soit du point de vue architecturale. La Maison de la Culture, le Stade, l'Unité d'Habitation et l'église de Saint-Pierre sont étudiés analytiquement: de l'idée originaire à l'iter d'élaboration en atelier, du chantier à l'oeuvre réalisée; et, ensuite, la vie du bâtiment, les interventions de restauration et les projets en cours d'étude en 2005-2006. Enfin, une attention particulière a été donnée au projet de l'église de Saint-Pierre, dont l'achèvement a été suivi en "temps réel", entre 2003 et 2006, en liaison étroite avec les architectes, le chantier et les entreprises
The last years of Le Corbusier's work are the most debated and controversial of his life, they offer a wide panorama that roved freely from accomplishment to disillusion, from incomprehension to international acknowledgement. The thesis faces this articulated production from multiple points of view trying to make a double reading of his production: one synchronic that embrace crosswise the different domains of his activity, the second diachronic of every single theme research. The period 1957-1965 has been studied considering Le Corbusier's artistic activity, writings, town-planning vision, realized and non-realized architectural projects, focusing particularly on his "operating method": from idea to architecture. Many interesting interviews were conducted during the research, with personalities like: Roger Aujame, Fernand Gardien, José Oubrerie, Claude Parent, Robert Rebutato, André Wogenscky, Dominique Claudius-Petit, fils d'Eugène Claudius-Petit. The thesis focuses particularly on the architectural complex of Firminy which is, after Chandigarh, the most important fragment of Le Corbusier's town-planning teories. The Maison de la Culture, le Stade, the Unité d'Habitation and the Saint-Pierre church are deeply and widely analyzed: from the primary idea throughout all the evolution of the project in atelier, from construction process to achievement; and more after, including restoration projects and future plans for the site. A great attention was pointed to the achievement of the Firminy's Saint Pierre church, which has been followed in "real time", from 2003 to 2006, in connection with architects and the building contractors

碩士
國立成功大學
醫學工程研究所
86
AbstractAnalysis of single motor unit (MU) discharge patterns provides an understanding of the neurophysiologic basis for quantifying the motor control ability. The aim of this research is to apply the surface motor unit action potentials (MUAPs) measured with noninvasive multielectrode for studying the firing characteristics of stroke, neuropathy, myopathy, and healthy volunteers.To investigate the firing rate variation, the measures of singular value decomposition (SVD), joint interval histogram (JIH), and autoregessive model (AR), derived from interpulse interval (IPI) train, were adopted in this research. This study first verifies the JIH parameters, including slope and area obtained from the AR model of simulated IPI sequences. Our simulation results indicate that the JIH slope reflects the stability of firing sequence and the JIH area indicates the whole firing variation. However, the measurement of SVD slope is too sensitive to the data distribution which is discarded in later clinical studies. Furthermore, this study extends the JIH representation to the second-order AR model. For second-order AR model, the firing characteristics can be observed from the location of poles, in terms of radius and phasic angle in z- plane. The phasic angle of the dominated pole, i.e. with larger radius, can be used to quantify the firing stability. An IPI sequence with larger radian of phasic angle indicates better controllability and vice versus.For each of the recruited subjects, sessions of the electromyographic (EMG) signal from the first dorsal interosseus (1st DI) during voluntary and isometric contraction were recorded. A multistage approach, including spatial filtering for peak localization and spatial decomposition for overlapping MUAPs, was utilized for the MU activity analysis of stroke patients. From limited numbers of clinical cases, the changes of firing characteristics of stroke patient, a upper motor neuron disease, significantly differ from the normal mainly in JIH slope indicating lower firing stability. However, the subjects with neuropathy and myopathy have higher firing variation in comparison with that of normal subjects. Our results indicate that the extracted parameters of the JIH ellipse as well as AR model can provide quantitative assessment for motor control ability in stroke patients.

The aim of this study was to determine motor unit firing patterns during ischemic versus non-ischemic sustained submaximal isometric contractions of the tibialis anterior muscle. 10 healthy adults attended two experimental sessions approximately 48 hours apart. Both sessions were identical except that the fatigue task in one was performed with a pressure cuff placed above the knee and inflated to 180 mm Hg. Three 5s maximum voluntary contractions (MVCs) were performed prior to and after the fatigue task. Each participant held a target force of 20% MVC until endurance time (peak-to-peak tremor amplitude exceeded 5% MVC). Single motor unit firing rates (11 non ischemic, 9 ischemic) were recorded with intramuscular fine wire electrodes. Mean interspike intervals over 5s time bins were calculated at every 5% endurance time. The endurance time for the ischemic (3.7 ± 0.58 min) fatigue task was significantly (p<0.001) shorter than the non-ischemic (9.5 ± 0.57 min) task. There was no significant difference in mean motor unit firing rates between the two conditions (p=0.883). Within both tests, there was a significant decline in firing rate (ischemic initial: 12.95 ± 0.71 Hz, minimum: 11.41 ± 0.81 Hz, p=0.023; non-ischemic initial: 13.13 ± 0.87 Hz, minimum: 11.15 ± 0.48 Hz, p=0.012). The time to minimum firing rate was significantly (p<0.001) less in the ischemic (1.29 ± 0.2 min) compared to non-ischemic (3.14 ± 0.23 min) condition. Muscle ischemia significantly reduced endurance time and the time to minimum firing rate. However, there were no differences in average motor unit firing rates between the two conditions across the relative phases of endurance time.
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碩士
國立成功大學
醫學工程研究所
86
Abstract Physiologically, the control of muscle force generation is modulated by two major mechanisms: motor unit firing rate and recruitment. This paper discusses the detection of firing rate from surface motor unit action potential (MUAP) train measured with noninvasive multielectrode EMG, rather than from the invasive needle EMG.The estimation of firing rate from the low-frequency spectrum, instead of interpulse interval (IPI), is adopted in this study. The autoregressive (AR) spectrum analysis method was utilized to detect the peaks, also poles at AR model, below 40 Hz of the EMG spectrum. The AIC criterion incorporating with autocorrelation function is used to determine the order of AR modeling. However, two major factors, including the noise interference and firing variation, could influence the estimation accuracy in AR modeling. From the simulation data, we can observe that the estimation algorithm can achieve 90 % of accuracy under the conditions of the noise level less than -15.5 db and the firing variation below 10 % of coefficient of variation.The firing rate estimation is also extended to observe the MUAP train with two MUs. Due to the harmonics of major firing rates, not all the peaks below 40 Hz of the low-frequency spectrum can be considered as the firing rates. In this research, the bispectrum analysis, a class of high order spectral, is used to identify the phase coupling and thus eliminate the over-estimates of harmonics. The bispectrum calculates the third moment of the signals, instead of second moment in traditional power spectrum in which the phase information is suppressed. Our study indicates that bispectrum approach can detect firing rates with acceptable accuracy if the difference between two firing rates is higher than 2 Hz.

博士
國立成功大學
醫學工程研究所
87
To noninvasively estimate the motor unit size and firing patterns, we present a novel surface EMG measurement system consisting of a surface multielectrode with 4 pin electrodes and a pair of surface disk electrodes. The surface motor unit action potential (MUAP) measured with the multielectrode, called multielectrode surface EMG (MSEMG), was spatially filtered to localize the sensing area and reduce the noise. In addition, a modified decomposition algorithm, considering the geometrical configuration of the multielectrode, was designed to identify the individual MUAPs in the measured MSEMG. To quantify the motor unit sizes, the trigger-averaged method had been employed. The identified MUAP was subsequently used as the triggering source for the EMG signals recorded by the surface disk electrodes. From a pool of 34 subjects with neuromuscular diseases and 14 normal subjects, the median amplitudes of surface-disk EMG after spike-triggered averaging, called MSEMG-MUAP, correlated well (r=0.82, P<0.0001) with those of macro EMG. Moreover, the MSEMG-MUAP recording during a ramp force contraction exhibited the common size principle phenomenon during motor unit recruitment. The results of this study demonstrate that the MSEMG-MUAP measurement is a feasible approach for estimating the motor unit size from the skin surface. To quantify the motor unit firing patterns in patients with central or peripheral lesions, the MSEMG was used to noninvasively measure the MUAPs for studying single motor unit firing patterns. The joint interval histogram representation was adopted herein, which was quantified by singular value decomposition (SVD) method. Computer simulations were carried out to confirm the meanings of two SVD parameters, the eigenvalue corresponding to the positive-slope eigenvector (PEV) and that corresponding to the negative-slope one (NEV). Results reveal that the NEV reflects the instantaneous firing variability, which is unaffected by human interventions, while the PEV/NEV ratio exhibits the relative effect of a trend in the firing pattern. In human studies, sessions of multielectrode surface EMG were recorded from first dorsal interosseous muscle during steady contraction in stroke, myopathy, neuropathy, and healthy control groups, with 16 subjects each. Results show most of the PEV/NEV ratio (74.0%) from normal subjects were less than 1, while 84.4% of that from the stroke patients were greater than 1. Different to stroke patients, wide spread distributions in both PEV and NEV were observed in subjects with neuromuscular diseases. These results suggest that SVD parameters can be used to differentiate the firing characteristics of patients with central or peripheral lesions.

Muscular fatigue limits athletic performance as well as activities of daily living that require repetitive or sustained contractile activity. The decrease in force output or inability to maintain a given force level during fatigue occurs as the result of neural and muscle physiological factors. In contrast to muscle fatigue, potentiation is an increase in muscle force following voluntary muscle activity. The simultaneously occurring processes of potentiation and fatigue influence force output. The aims of this research were to investigate parameters used to potentiate muscle via electrical stimulation and voluntary contraction, and to better understand how muscle force is sustained, we studied single motor unit firing patterns and force potentiation following muscular endurance training. In study 1, electrical stimulation trains matched for pulse number of various frequencies and of increasing pulse number at a given frequency were administered to determine the effects of these stimulation parameters and of the force-time integral (FTI) produced during the train on potentiation magnitude. No difference in potentiation magnitude was found across trains of matched pulse number for frequencies of 15, 25, 30 and 50 Hz. Potentiation increased as pulse number increased and there was a positive correlation between potentiation and the FTI. In study 2, we measured maximal potentiation following conditioning contractions (CC) of 25%, 50% and 100% maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) and during a 25% MVC fatigue task, pre-post 8 weeks of muscular endurance training. Results showed significant potentiation for all CC intensities. Potentiation increased as CC intensity increased and CC duration required to achieve maximal potentiation decreased as CC intensity increased. Muscular endurance training resulted in increased maximal potentiation, and potentiation was greater during the fatigue task after training. Potentiation was also correlated to endurance time. In study 3, the effects of muscular endurance training on motor unit firing rates were investigated. There was a small increase in mean motor unit firing rates during the course of the fatigue task after training. This research contributes to our understanding of muscular force production and muscular endurance. The findings suggest that motor unit firing frequency and force potentiation may contribute to enhanced muscular endurance.
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Thesis (M.Sc.)--York University, 2005. Graduate Programme in Kinesiology and Health Science.
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Electromyographic (EMG) signal decomposition is the process of resolving an EMG signal into its component motor unit potential trains (MUPTs). The extracted MUPTs can aid in the diagnosis of neuromuscular disorders and the study of the neural control of movement, but only if they are valid trains. Before using decomposition results and the motor unit potential (MUP) shape and motor unit (MU) firing pattern information related to each active MU for either clinical or research purposes the fact that the extracted MUPTs are valid needs to be confirmed. The existing MUPT validation methods are either time consuming or related to operator experience and skill. More importantly, they cannot be executed during automatic decomposition of EMG signals to assist with improving decomposition results. To overcome these issues, in this thesis the possibility of developing automatic MUPT validation algorithms has been explored. Several methods based on a combination of feature extraction techniques, cluster validation methods, supervised classification algorithms, and multiple classifier fusion techniques were developed. The developed methods, in general, use either the MU firing pattern or MUP-shape consistency of a MUPT, or both, to estimate its overall validity. The performance of the developed systems was evaluated using a variety of MUPTs obtained from the decomposition of several simulated and real intramuscular EMG signals. Based on the results achieved, the methods that use only shape or only firing pattern information had higher generalization error than the systems that use both types of information. For the classifiers that use MU firing pattern information of a MUPT to determine its validity, the accuracy for invalid trains decreases as the number of missed-classification errors in trains increases. Likewise, for the methods that use MUP-shape information of a MUPT to determine its validity, the classification accuracy for invalid trains decreases as the within-train similarity of the invalid trains increase. Of the systems that use both shape and firing pattern information, those that separately estimate MU firing pattern validity and MUP-shape validity and then estimate the overall validity of a train by fusing these two indices using trainable fusion methods performed better than the single classifier scheme that estimates MUPT validity using a single classifier, especially for the real data used. Overall, the multi-classifier constructed using trainable logistic regression to aggregate base classifier outputs had the best performance with overall accuracy of 99.4% and 98.8% for simulated and real data, respectively. The possibility of formulating an algorithm for automated editing MUPTs contaminated with a high number of false-classification errors (FCEs) during decomposition was also investigated. Ultimately, a robust method was developed for this purpose. Using a supervised classifier and MU firing pattern information provided by each MUPT, the developed algorithm first determines whether a given train is contaminated by a high number of FCEs and needs to be edited. For contaminated MUPTs, the method uses both MU firing pattern and MUP shape information to detect MUPs that were erroneously assigned to the train. Evaluation based on simulated and real MU firing patterns, shows that contaminated MUPTs could be detected with 84% and 81% accuracy for simulated and real data, respectively. For a given contaminated MUPT, the algorithm on average correctly classified around 92.1% of the MUPs of the MUPT. The effectiveness of using the developed MUPT validation systems and the MUPT editing methods during EMG signal decomposition was investigated by integrating these algorithms into a certainty-based EMG signal decomposition algorithm. Overall, the decomposition accuracy for 32 simulated and 30 real EMG signals was improved by 7.5% (from 86.7% to 94.2%) and 3.4% (from 95.7% to 99.1%), respectively. A significant improvement was also achieved in correctly estimating the number of MUPTs represented in a set of detected MUPs. The simulated and real EMG signals used were comprised of 3–11 and 3–15 MUPTs, respectively.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--York University, 2002. Graduate Programme in Kinesiology and Health Science.
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Thesis (M. Sc.)--York University, 2001. Graduate Programme in Kinesiology and Health Science.
Typescript. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ71585.

Dissertação de Mestrado Integrado em Arquitectura apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra.
Esta Dissertação analisa as experiências de habitar do Homem enquanto ocupante do edifício de habitação colectiva da Unité d'Habitation de Firminy de 1965, com o propósito d e examinar o seu contributo no processo evolutivo desta comunidade. Neste processo, revelam se pertinentes os comportamentos e relações sociais levadas a cabo pelos habitantes deste edifício, bem como contactos e experiências influenciadoras do seu entendi mento de casa, que vão fazer parte do processo de adaptação e/ou alteração face às dinâmicas de funcionamento do conjunto, tanto nos espaços públicos, como nos privados. Para o Homem, o acto de habitar é algo íntimo e pessoal, onde este ocupa um dado espaç o sobre o qual vai intervir de modo a condicionar a sua forma e conteúdo, moldando o à su a acção quotidiana através de processos de apropriação , com o objectivo de esse lhe pertencer, para assim o poder identificar como “casa”. Os temas e actos de habitar, vão aqui ser integrados segundo o ponto de vista colectivo de uma comunidade, no caso específico d a Unité d'Habitation de Firminy, onde vão estar condicionados por diversos factores e influências externas à acção individual do seu habitante. Esta comunida de serve o seu habitante através de diversos serviços complementares à sua actividade diária, que aliviam a sua carga doméstica e promovem a sua participação e integração numa vida social activa. A análise do percurso arquitectónico de Le Corbusier, suas influências e contextualização, revelam se importantes para o entendimento da evolução dos modelos de habitação por ele praticados, até chegar à célula habitacional dos seus projectos de Unité d'Habitation. Para tal, foram estudados os elementos compositiv os nas suas obras apontadas ao tema da casa, numa época inicial do seu percurso enquanto arquitecto, onde já era visível uma génese dos temas incluídos nos projectos das Unités, incidindo principalmente nas décadas de dez, vinte e trinta do século XX. Cheg ando ao modelo de Unité d'Habitation, serve o primeiro exemplar em Marselha de 1947, como elo de comparação com o caso de estudo desta Dissertação, relativamente a programas e elementos constituintes, aferindo as diferenças existentes, que distinguem o edi fício de Firminy e moldam as bases para uma realidade social e arquitectónica singular.
This Dissertation analyses the dwell ing experiences of men, while an occupant of the collective housi ng building of the Unité d'Habitation in Firminy of 1 965, with the purpose of examining its contribution to the evolution process of this community. Both the social behavio u rs and relationships performed by the population of this building, are considered r elevant for this study, as much as the influential contacts and experiences for their comprehensi on of the “house as a home”, and which are included in the process of adaptation and/or modification o f the building' s d ynamics, whether in public or private s paces. For a man, the act of inhabit ing , is something personal and intimate, in which he occupies a certain space where he will intervene, conditioning its form and content, shaping it to his daily activitie s through some appropriation processes , with the purpose of feeling that that space belongs to him, so that he can identify it as his “home”. The acts and themes of inhabit ing are included here in the collective point of view of a community, in this specific case of the Unité d'H abitation in Firminy, whe re they are conditioned by several factors external to the individual activity of its inhabitants. This community serves its population through multiple services, that complement their daily life and routine, in order to relieve their domestic duties and p romote their participation and integration in an active social life. Le Corbusier's architectonic path , his influences and context show great importance to the understanding of his dwelling model's evolution un till the conception of the housing cell, found in the Unité d'Habitation project. So, we study the compositive elements of his housing type buildings in an early period of his career as an architect, in which it was already noticeable some of the principles of the Unité project, focusing mainly in the tenth, twentieth and thirtieth decades of the twenty first century. As we reach the final model of the Unité d'Habitation, the first example of this typology, at Marseilles in 1947, serves as comparison with the building studied in this Dissertation in th e topic of the constituent programs and ele ments, thus assessing the existe nt differences, which distinguish Firminy's building and cast the basis for a singular architectonic and social realities.

This diploma thesis focueses on a composition of training simple gymnastic exercises including bar and balance beam exercises and climbing for students of an elementary school and its use in practice. This methodology was applied to a chosen class of an elementary school. The main aims were to find the level of skills through the input tests then to make a progress after application of the composed methodology and finally to find the level of skills through the output tests. The thesis consists of 20 complete lesson plans of the particular lessons just as they were done. It should open up the issue of training simple gymnastic skills and to help teachers to make their P. E. Lessons attractive.