BACKGROUND: In clinical evaluation of upper extremity, there is a lack of assessment methods that are quantitative, reliable, and informative of the overall functional capability of an individual. OBJECTIVE: We present new methodology for the assessment of upper extremity impairments based on the concept of 3dimensional reachable workspace using Microsoft Kinect. METHODS: We quantify the reachable workspace by the relative surface area representing the portion of the unit hemisphere that is covered by the hand movement. We examine accuracy of joint positions, joint angles, and reachable workspace computation between the Kinect and motion capture system. RESULTS:The results of our analysis in 10 healthy subjects showed that the accuracy of the joint positions was within 66.3 mm for our experimental protocol. We found that the dynamic angle measurements had relatively large deviations (between 9 • to 28 • ). The acquired reachable workspace envelope showed high agreement between the two systems with high repeatability between trials (correlation coefficients between 0.86 and 0.93). CONCLUSIONS:The findings indicate that the proposed Kinect-based 3D reachable workspace analysis provides sufficiently accurate and reliable results as compared to motion capture system. The proposed method could be promising for clinical evaluation of upper extremity in neurological or musculoskeletal conditions.

This work presents performance advancements of dispenser printed composite thermoelectric materials and devices. Dispenser printed thick films allow for low-cost and scalable manufacturing of microscale energy harvesting devices. A maximum ZT value of 0.31 has been achieved for mechanically alloyed (MA) n-type Bi₂Te₃-epoxy composite films with 1 wt % Se cured at 350 °C. The enhancement of ZT is a result of increase in the electrical conductivity through the addition of Se, which ultimately lowers the sintering temperature (350 °C). A 62 single-leg thermoelectric generator (TEG) prototype with 5 mm ×700 μm × 120 μm printed element dimensions was fabricated on a custom designed polyimide substrate with thick metal contacts. The prototype device produced a power output of 25 μW at 0.23 mA current and 109 mV voltage for a temperature difference of 20 °C, which is sufficient for low power generation for autonomous microsystem applications.

This work presents a novel method to synthesize p-type composite thermoelectric materials to print scalable thermoelectric generator (TEG) devices in a cost-effective way. A maximum ZT of 0.2 was achieved for mechanically alloyed (MA) p-type Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 (8 wt % extra Te additive)-epoxy composite films cured at 250 °C. A 50% increase in Seebeck coefficient as a result of adding 8 wt % extra Te in stoichiometric Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 contributed to the increase in ZT. To demonstrate cost-effective and scalable manufacturing, we fabricated a sixty element thermoelectric generator prototype with 5.0 mm × 600 μm × 120 μm printed dimensions on a custom designed polyimide substrate with thick metal contacts. The prototype TEG device produced a power output of 20.5 μW at 0.15 mA and 130 mV for a temperature difference of 20 K resulting in a device areal power density of 152 μW/cm(2). This power is sufficient for low power applications such as wireless sensor network (WSN) devices.

This paper describes novel processes for preparing thermoelectric composite materials compatible with thick film dispenser printing fabrication processes. Optimization of process parameters to improve thermoelectric properties is introduced. We explore the use of n-type Bi 2 Te 3 and p-type Sb 2 Te 3 materials to achieve properties suitable for use in low cost high aspect ratio microscale thermoelectric generators. Printable thermoelectric inks consisted of dispersed semiconductor powders in an epoxy resin system. Thick films were printed on glass substrates and cured at temperatures ranging from 150 to 350 °C. The best achievable power factors for n-type Bi 2 Te 3 -epoxy and p-type Sb 2 Te 3 -epoxy composite films were 1.5ϫ 10 −4 W / m K 2 and 8.4 ϫ 10 −4 W / m K 2 , respectively. Figure of merit ͑ZT͒ values for n-type Bi 2 Te 3 -epoxy and p-type Sb 2 Te 3 -epoxy composites were 0.16 and 0.41, respectively, which are much higher than previously reported ZT values for composite thermoelectric materials.

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