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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
11

Design of a Pneumatic Artificial Muscle for Powered Lower Limb Prostheses

Murillo, Jaime 01 May 2013 (has links)
Ideal prostheses are defined as artificial limbs that would permit physically impaired individuals freedom of movement and independence rather than a life of disability and dependence. Current lower limb prostheses range from a single mechanical revolute joint to advanced microprocessor controlled mechanisms. Despite the advancement in technology and medicine, current lower limb prostheses are still lacking an actuation element, which prohibits patients from regaining their original mobility and improving their quality of life. This thesis aims to design and test a Pneumatic Artificial Muscle that would actuate lower limb prostheses. This would offer patients the ability to ascend and descend stairs as well as standing up from a sitting position. A comprehensive study of knee biomechanics is first accomplished to characterize the actuation requirement, and subsequently a Pneumatic Artificial Muscle design is proposed. A novel design of muscle end fixtures is presented which would allow the muscle to operate at a gage pressure surpassing 2.76 MPa (i.e. 400 psi) and yield a muscle force that is at least 3 times greater than that produced by any existing equivalent Pneumatic Artificial Muscle. Finally, the proposed Pneumatic Artificial Muscle is tested and validated to verify that it meets the size, weight, kinetic and kinematic requirements of human knee articulation.
12

Design of a Pneumatic Artificial Muscle for Powered Lower Limb Prostheses

Murillo, Jaime January 2013 (has links)
Ideal prostheses are defined as artificial limbs that would permit physically impaired individuals freedom of movement and independence rather than a life of disability and dependence. Current lower limb prostheses range from a single mechanical revolute joint to advanced microprocessor controlled mechanisms. Despite the advancement in technology and medicine, current lower limb prostheses are still lacking an actuation element, which prohibits patients from regaining their original mobility and improving their quality of life. This thesis aims to design and test a Pneumatic Artificial Muscle that would actuate lower limb prostheses. This would offer patients the ability to ascend and descend stairs as well as standing up from a sitting position. A comprehensive study of knee biomechanics is first accomplished to characterize the actuation requirement, and subsequently a Pneumatic Artificial Muscle design is proposed. A novel design of muscle end fixtures is presented which would allow the muscle to operate at a gage pressure surpassing 2.76 MPa (i.e. 400 psi) and yield a muscle force that is at least 3 times greater than that produced by any existing equivalent Pneumatic Artificial Muscle. Finally, the proposed Pneumatic Artificial Muscle is tested and validated to verify that it meets the size, weight, kinetic and kinematic requirements of human knee articulation.
13

A case for memory enhancement : ethical, social, legal, and policy implications for enhancing the memory

Muriithi, Paul Mutuanyingi January 2014 (has links)
The desire to enhance and make ourselves better is not a new one and it has continued to intrigue throughout the ages. Individuals have continued to seek ways to improve and enhance their well-being for example through nutrition, physical exercise, education and so on. Crucial to this improvement of their well-being is improving their ability to remember. Hence, people interested in improving their well-being, are often interested in memory as well. The rationale being that memory is crucial to our well-being. The desire to improve one’s memory then is almost certainly as old as the desire to improve one’s well-being. Traditionally, people have used different means in an attempt to enhance their memories: for example in learning through storytelling, studying, and apprenticeship. In remembering through practices like mnemonics, repetition, singing, and drumming. In retaining, storing and consolidating memories through nutrition and stimulants like coffee to help keep awake; and by external aids like notepads and computers. In forgetting through rituals and rites. Recent scientific advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology, molecular biology, neuroscience, and information technologies, present a wide variety of technologies to enhance many different aspects of human functioning. Thus, some commentators have identified human enhancement as central and one of the most fascinating subject in bioethics in the last two decades. Within, this period, most of the commentators have addressed the Ethical, Social, Legal and Policy (ESLP) issues in human enhancements as a whole as opposed to specific enhancements. However, this is problematic and recently various commentators have found this to be deficient and called for a contextualized case-by-case analysis to human enhancements for example genetic enhancement, moral enhancement, and in my case memory enhancement (ME). The rationale being that the reasons for accepting/rejecting a particular enhancement vary depending on the enhancement itself. Given this enormous variation, moral and legal generalizations about all enhancement processes and technologies are unwise and they should instead be evaluated individually. Taking this as a point of departure, this research will focus specifically on making a case for ME and in doing so assessing the ESLP implications arising from ME. My analysis will draw on the already existing literature for and against enhancement, especially in part two of this thesis; but it will be novel in providing a much more in-depth analysis of ME. From this perspective, I will contribute to the ME debate through two reviews that address the question how we enhance the memory, and through four original papers discussed in part three of this thesis, where I examine and evaluate critically specific ESLP issues that arise with the use of ME. In the conclusion, I will amalgamate all my contribution to the ME debate and suggest the future direction for the ME debate.

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