Background : Knee flexors tightness has been documented in apparently healthy adults and in those with musculoskeletal problems, but the influence of age on the tightness has not been studied in Iraq. This study was therefore designed to determine the influence of age on knee flexors tightness in apparently healthy subjects.Methods: Knee flexors tightness was measured using the active knee extension test (AKET) in 200 apparently healthy male and female subjects, aged 13 to 59 years. The subjects were recruited into 5 age groups using the purposive sampling technique.Knee flexors tightness was compared across the age groups using one-way analysis ofvariance (ANOVA). The independent t-test was used to compare knee flexors tightness on both lower limbs in male and female subjects.Results: Subjects' mean age was 29.63 ± 16.72 years. All subjects had knee flexors tightness (absolute extension lag) and this increased with age up to age group 40-49 years. The male subjects had significantly higher knee flexors tightness than the females in all the age groups.Conclusion: This study suggests that knee flexors tightness increases in apparently healthy persons from adolescent up to age 40-49 years and it is higher in males than females.Key words: knee flexors tightness, age, active knee extension test
In recent years, the attention of researchers, governments and international non-governmental organizations has focused on the aggressive practices adopted by companies with the aim of evading the tax burden or from paying the tax obligations imposed on them by law, as the results of these practices are negatively affected by tax revenues. And that companies are part of the society in which they work, and they have rights and obligations, including paying taxes. The research community is the Iraqi private shareholding companies, and the research sample was 4 companies within the private sector and in the field and finance - banking, insurance, industrial and service, which are Ashur Bank, Al-Ahlia Insurance Company, Baghdad Soft
... Show MoreIn recent years, the attention of researchers, governments and international non-governmental organizations has focused on the aggressive practices adopted by companies with the aim of evading the tax burden or from paying the tax obligations imposed on them by law, as the results of these practices are negatively affected by tax revenues. And that companies are part of the society in which they work, and they have rights and obligations, including paying taxes. The research community is the Iraqi private shareholding companies, and the research sample was 4 companies within the private sector and in the field and finance - banking, insurance, industrial and service, which are Ashur Bank, Al-Ahlia Insurance Company, Baghdad Soft
... Show MoreThe flexible joint robot manipulators provide various benefits, but also present many control challenges such as nonlinearities, strong coupling, vibration, etc. This paper proposes optimal second order integral sliding mode control (OSOISMC) for a single link flexible joint manipulator to achieve robust and smooth performance. Firstly, the integral sliding mode control is designed, which consists of a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) as a nominal control, and switching control. This control guarantees the system robustness for the entire process. Then, a nonsingularterminal sliding surface is added to give a second order integral sliding mode control (SOISMC), which reduces chartering effect and gives the finite time convergence as well. S
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Trajectory tracking and vibration suppression are essential objectives in a flexible joint manipulator control. The flexible joint manipulator is an under-actuated system, in which the number of control actions is less than the degree of freedom to be controlled. It is very challenging to control the underactuated nonlinear system with two degree of freedom. This paper presents a hierarchical sliding mode control (HSMC) for a rotary flexible joint manipulator (RFJM). Firstly, the rotary flexible joint manipulator is modeled by two subsystems. Secondly, the sliding surfaces for both subsystems are constructed. Finally, the control action is designed based on the Lyapunov function. Computer simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of
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In this work, a joint quadrature for numerical solution of the double integral is presented. This method is based on combining two rules of the same precision level to form a higher level of precision. Numerical results of the present method with a lower level of precision are presented and compared with those performed by the existing high-precision Gauss-Legendre five-point rule in two variables, which has the same functional evaluation. The efficiency of the proposed method is justified with numerical examples. From an application point of view, the determination of the center of gravity is a special consideration for the present scheme. Convergence analysis is demonstrated to validate the current method.
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This article presents a new cascaded extended state observer (CESO)-based sliding-mode control (SMC) for an underactuated flexible joint robot (FJR). The control of the FJR has many challenges, including coupling, underactuation, nonlinearity, uncertainties and external disturbances, and the noise amplification especially in the high-order systems. The proposed control integrates the CESO and SMC, in which the CESO estimates the states and disturbances, and the SMC provides the system robustness to the uncertainty and disturbance estimation errors. First, a dynamic model of the FJR is derived and converted from an underactuated form to a canonical form via the Olfati transformation and a flatness approach, which reduces the complexity of th
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Background: Pain is one of the most postoperative complications of surgical wound especially within first 24 hrs. leading to delay hospital discharge, stress gastritis and increasing blood pressure. As wound infiltration with long acting local anesthetic (bupivacaine) has been proved to be effective after orthopedic surgeries especially total hip and knee replacements.Objective: our study was designed to determine theeffectiveness of local infiltration of 0.5% of bupivacainebefore closure of surgical wounds in controllingpostoperative pain and improve patient’s outcome after totalhip and knee replacement surgeries in first 24hrspostoperative period.Methods: Twenty patients from class I (healthy patients) and class II (patients mild sys
... Show MoreThe influence of the grounded electrode area on the ignition voltage in capcitively coupled radio frequency discharge at 13.56 MHz in argon gas is studied experimentally. The results indicate a systematic decrease of the breakdown voltage with increasing grounded electrode area for the same pd value. Results show that the secondary ionization coefficient γ increases with the increase of grounded electrode area. Furthermore, results also the discharge current at the breakdown voltage increases almost linearly with the increase of electrode area suggesting an almost constant current density.
The ratio of draft tube to reactor diameters is of decisive importance for the operation behavior of air lift loop reactors. The influence of draft tube geometry was investigated with respect to oxygen mass transfer and mixing time. The diameter ratio was varied between 0.33 and 0.80. The measurements were performed in two loop reactors with liquid capacities of 11.775 and 26.49 liters using aqueous with solutions of different coalescence behavior. The results show that there is no single diameter ratio which would produce most favorable conditions for the two process parameters. With respect to the more important requirements of aerobic cultures, i.e high oxygen mass transfer and efficient mixing, a diameter ratio between 0.5 and 0.6 is
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