No abstract available.
Physical Phenomena ; Magnetics

OBJECTIVES: To find evidence that sleep is necessary for normal brain function, thus indicating that declines in both sleep quality and quantity are related to worse performance of many daily tasks and deteriorated physical functions. The present study investigates the relationships of balance control and reaction time with sleep quality. METHODS: 58 healthy (male 20, female 38) volunteers with informed consent participated in this study. The Self-reported Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used to evaluate sleep quality and relevant factors, and the subjects were divided into groups A (PSQI < 5) and B (PSQI ≥ 5) based on this index. Static balance control and reaction time to visual stimuli were conducted to assess their relationship with sleep quality. RESULTS: Group B exhibited excessive daytime sleepiness significantly more often compared to group A. Static balance control did not markedly change relative to sleep quality, but reaction time and error to visual stimuli were significantly increased in group B compared to group A. CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that a decline in sleep quality can result in delayed reactions, as well as decreased accuracy of these reactions. They also suggest that low sleep quality may be associated with changes in physical functions, including balance control through reduced selective attention.
Brain ; Female ; Humans ; Informed Consent ; Physical Phenomena ; Reaction Time* ; Volunteers

Background. Workplace or employees’ clinics play a vital role in disease outbreaks as there could be an influx of sick personnel. Processes and patient flows during pandemics should be documented to identify good practices and sources of operational inefficiencies. Objective. To describe the patient flow, health delivery processes, and areas for improvement at the UPHS during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic from May to June 2020. Methods. This was a cross-sectional study involving patient flow analysis of processes at the employees’ clinic of the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital. The study was divided into two major components: clinic process time measurement and process flow mapping. Data collection involved time elements and narrative descriptions of good practices and problems in the process flow. Results. The UPHS staff attended to 1,514 employees’ visits during the 15 working days from May to June 2020. The total UPHS service time from arrival to end of consultation of an employee with a COVID-19-related concern was an average of 1 hour 3 minutes (SD±39 minutes) with a mean total waiting time of 46 minutes (SD±37 minutes). Good practices identified were personnel flexibility in doing other tasks, good communication, and infection control measures. Areas for improvement included symptom screening, implementation of physical distancing, and disinfection practices. Conclusion. The process flows in the UPHS clinic consisted of COVID-19 related consultations, non-COVID-19 related concerns, and swabbing services. Good communication, staff flexibility, infection control measures, and leadership were identified as good practices. Occasional lapses in symptom screening at triage, physical distancing among employees in queuing lines, and inconsistent disinfection practices were the areas for improvement.
Humans ; COVID-19 ; Physical Phenomena ; Delivery of Health Care

Traditional mineral Chinese medicine is a characteristic part of Chinese medicine, in the development of traditional Chinese medicine has its unique role. With the development of science and technology and the increase of the medical level, traditional mineral medicine research is gradually thorough and wide-ranging. In recent years, traditional mineral Chinese medicine research mainly includes the physical properties of mineral medicine, structure, chemical composition, pharmacology and treatment mechanism research. The above several aspects of research in the mineral medicine has important practical and theoretical significance. The above several aspects of research status and the problems existing in the research were briefly summarized and reviewed in this paper, and its development were discussed, to provide reference for further studies in the future.
Animals ; Humans ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; methods ; Minerals ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; toxicity ; Physical Phenomena

This study aimed to evaluate the rheological characteristic of W/O microemulsion. Using the Low Shear-30 Sinus Rheometer, we assessed the effects of water percentage in microemulsion on the apparent viscosity of microemulsion at different shear rates and temperature, and on the viscoelasticity of microemulsion. The results demonstrated that with the increase of water, the apparent viscosities at four different shear rates increased exponentially. The fitted curve between water percentage and the apparent viscosity (eta) at low shear rate was steeper than the others. We found that viscous component (eta') and elastic component (eta") also increased exponentially when water percentage was increasing. This communication addressed the relationship between water percentage and eta, and discussed the physical meaning of the elastic component. The results suggest that both the viscous component and the elastic component present qualitatively physical nature, but the viscous component is more accurate than the other.
Chemical Phenomena ; Chemistry, Physical ; Elasticity ; Emulsions ; Phosphatidylcholines ; chemistry ; Rheology ; Shear Strength ; Viscosity

Gesture imitation is a common rehabilitation strategy in limb rehabilitation training. In traditional rehabilitation training, patients need to complete training actions under the guidance of rehabilitation physicians. However, due to the limited resources of the hospital, it cannot meet the training and guidance needs of all patients. In this paper, we proposed a following control method based on Kinect and NAO robot for the gesture imitation task in rehabilitation training. The method realized the joint angles mapping from Kinect coordination to NAO robot coordination through inverse kinematics algorithm. Aiming at the deflection angle estimation problem of the elbow joint, a virtual space plane was constructed and realized the accurate estimation of deflection angle. Finally, a comparative experiment for deflection angle of the elbow joint angle was conducted. The experimental results showed that the root mean square error of the angle estimation value of this method in right elbow transverse deflection and vertical deflection directions was 2.734° and 2.159°, respectively. It demonstrates that the method can follow the human movement in real time and stably using the NAO robot to show the rehabilitation training program for patients.
Humans ; Upper Extremity ; Robotics/methods* ; Stroke Rehabilitation/methods* ; Elbow Joint ; Physical Therapy Modalities ; Biomechanical Phenomena

OBJECTIVETo observe the modulatory effect of subthalamic nucleus (STN) on activity of motor cortex during exhausting exercise.

METHODSElectrocorticogram (ECoG) and local field potentials (LFPs) recording techniques were applied simultaneously to observe the dynamic changes of oscillations in sensorimotor area and STN of rat during exhausting exercise.

RESULTSRats ran well initiatively with treadmill at the beginning of the exercise, about 45 min (45 +/- 11.5) later, movement capacity reduced. Corresponding electrical property showed that STN activity increased significantly while activity of cortex decreased significantly. Subsequently rats continued exercise with minor external stimulation utill exhaustion. Activity of ECoG reached the minimum under exhausting stations (P < 0.01), while the activity of LFPs changed insignificantly (P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONDuring the exhausting exercise, the cortex activity was extensively depressed with the development of fatigue, while the activity of STN increased significantly at the early stage of fatigue, STN took part in the modulation of central fatigue through negative induction. And the increase of STN activity may be one of the key measures accounting for protective inhibition.

Animals ; Cerebral Cortex ; physiology ; Electrophysiological Phenomena ; physiology ; Male ; Neurons ; physiology ; Physical Conditioning, Animal ; physiology ; Physical Exertion ; physiology ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar ; Subthalamic Nucleus ; physiology

The properties of biomedical intelligent polymer materials can be changed obviously when there is a little physical or chemical change in external condition. They are in the forms of solids, solutions and polymers on the surface of carrier, including aqueous solution of hydrophilic polymers, cross-linking hydrophilic polymers (i.e. hydrogels) and the polymers on the surface of carrier. In this paper are reviewed the progress in researches and the application of biomedical intelligent polymer materials.
Biocompatible Materials ; chemistry ; Biotechnology ; Chemical Phenomena ; Chemistry, Physical ; Hydrogel, Polyethylene Glycol Dimethacrylate ; chemistry ; Polymers ; chemistry ; Surface Properties

For investigating the changes in continuous biomechanical nature of bone bearing intensive stress in vivo, we adopted the animal model of persistent intensive stress. Thirty-seven rabbits were involved in the experiment; they were randomly divided into control group (5 rabbits) and trained group (32 rabbits). All animals were forced to jump and run about 300 times everyday in the electric stimulation cage so as to simulate the persistent intensive stress on tibias for different periods. Subsequently, all animals were sacrificed at different times (1-11 weeks), and all tibias of them were collected for biochemical investigation. By torsion destroy test, the experiment showed that the changes of biomechanical nature appeared obviously in a period of 6 weeks or so in the experiment. Furthermore, during the 2nd-3rd week of each period, the biomechanical indexes decreased strikingly; the abilities of deformation resistant dropped, the twisting rigidity decreased (69.7% lower than control, P< 0.01), the flexible index inereased (203.2% higher than control, P<0.05), the angle of twisting destroy increased (102.9% greater than control, P< 0.05). And the tibial mechanical strength declined too; the destroy torsion, energy absorption and energy absorb density decreased (most of them being 50% lower than control, even accounting for 34.5% of control; P< 0.05 or P< 0.01). We noticed that the biomechanical properties of bone endured persistent intensive stress presented periodicity and the period of change in bone biomechanical nature covered about 6 weeks in the experiment. Therefore, we have ground to conclude that a weakness period did exist when rabbit tibias endured 2-3 weeks persistent intensive stress, and such weakness did exist at the 2nd-3rd week of each training period.
Adaptation, Physiological ; Animals ; Biomechanical Phenomena ; Bone Density ; Male ; Physical Conditioning, Animal ; Rabbits ; Random Allocation ; Stress, Mechanical ; Tibia ; physiology ; Time Factors

In order to effectively increase capacity of Cu2+ absorption by Penicillium from Cu2+-containing aqueous solution and to study the mechanisms of absorption, effects of eight pre-treatment methods on Cu2+ absorption of Penicillium janthinellum strain GXCR were compared. The results showed that the efficiency of Cu2+ absorption obviously increased through pre-treatment by homogenization, homogenization-basification (NaOH), oven dry (80 degrees C), homogenization-salinification (NaCl), homogenization-detergent and homogenization-polarization (C2H6SO), but significantly decreased after acidification pretreatment with H2SO4. In comparison with the previous reports, the pretreatment in a homogenization-NaOH way could more efficiently enhance the Cu2+ absorption capacity of this fungus. Homogenization-basification (0.5 mol/L NaOH) increased Cu2+ biosorption by 47.95%. The Cu2+ absorption of the mycelia treated by homogenization-basification followed Langmuir isotherm equation, suggesting a surface absorption process. After four cycles of absorption-desorption, mycelia pretreated by homogenization-alkalization still had 70.82% of Cu2+ biosorption efficiency. Infrared reflectance analysis indicated that alkalization treatment made marked effects on molecular groups of C-H, C=O, and C=O in COOH on the mycelial surfaces, and -OH was a key Cu2+-binding group. It is therefore suggested that the Cu2+ absorption by the GXCR is likely to be a chemical absorption process through Cu2+ binding with -OH group on the mycelia.
Adsorption ; Biodegradation, Environmental ; Copper ; metabolism ; Penicillium ; metabolism ; Physical Phenomena ; Sodium Hydroxide ; chemistry ; Waste Disposal, Fluid ; methods ; Water Pollutants, Chemical ; metabolism