Daily foot conditions, especially spatial and temporal plantar pressure distributions, are useful measures for monitoring diabetic patients from developing peripheral neuropathy and foot ulcerations. ...However, many of present foot monitoring systems are clumsy thus cannot be used for uncontrolled dynamic activities such as long-term outdoor use, and can easily interrupt wearer's natural gait by bulky components and complex connections as well as restriction in research laboratories and clinics. This paper presents the development of an intelligent footwear system, which is able to measure and record, during daily activities, spatial and temporal plantar pressure distributions, in-shoe temperature and humidity, centre of pressure (COP), and 3-axis accelerations. The intelligent footwear system demonstrated satisfactory accuracy, repeatability and wearing comfort, and has been used for dynamic foot monitoring of diabetic patients. The first clinical trial involved an H group of 10 healthy subjects and a DM group of 10 diabetic patients without peripheral neuropathy. This trial explored and identified differences of plantar pressure between the healthy and diabetic subjects in dynamic daily activities. The second trial started with a diabetic patient with healed toe amputation for the evaluation of effects of surgical procedures and treatments on diabetic patients.
To describe a novel approach to measuring anterior chamber angle dimensions and configurations. Sixty-nine images were selected randomly from the ultrasound biomicroscopic image database to develop ...the algorithm. Thirty images were selected for further analyses. The value of each pixel of the 8-bit grayscale ultrasound biomicroscopic images was quantized into 0 (black) or 1 (white), and the edge points outlining the angle were detected and fitted with straight lines. The dimensions and profiles of anterior chamber angles were then measured. The algorithm failed to identify the edge points correctly in 8 (11.6%) of 69 images because of strong background noise. Three basic types of angle configuration were identified based on the derived angle profiles: constant, increasing, and decreasing, which corresponded to flat, bowed forward, and bowed backward iris contours, respectively. The angle measurements demonstrated high correlation with trabecular-iris angle and angle opening distance 500 (calculated as the distance from the corneal endothelium to the anterior iris surface perpendicular to a line drawn at 500 im from the scleral spur). The strongest association was found between the averaged angle derived from the angle profile and the angle opening distance 500 (r= 0.91). The proposed algorithm has high correlations with angle opening distance and trabecular-iris angle with the added advantages of being fully automated, reproducible, and able to capture the characteristic angle configurations. However, good-quality ultrasound biomicroscopic images with high signal-to-noise ratio are required to identify the edge points correctly.
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