Suddenly, structured settlements are flavour of the month. The Chief Medical Officer’s working party has considered them; Baroness Scotland has announced changes in the law will be introduced to permit a court to order periodical payments; and, independently of all these, the Master of the Rolls instituted a working party to report as to possible changes of practice within the existing law. Structured settlements are not a one-size-fits-all panacea: indeed, they may sacrifice the very flexibility which many injured claimants both want and need from their damages award. However, they could be a very useful part of making provision for future income needs and ought to be seen in this context.

Principle and practice

Summary form only given. The main thrust in any reliability work is identifying for the new technology of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). This tutorial includes a brief review of MEMS fabrication methods and identifies some commercial products. We describe some of the methods developed to measure materials parameters and surface properties to characterize MEMS devices. Our reliability methodology employs statistical characterization and testing to help us identify dominant failure modes. We strive to determine the root cause of each failure mode and to gain a fundamental (science-based) understanding of that mechanism. The development of predictive models follows from this science-based understanding. A reliability model for wear in a MEMS application with contacting surfaces was presented.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/10702/33792/01609587.pdf

MEMS reliability

Motion sensors such as MEMS gyroscopes and accelerometers are characterized by a small size, light weight, high sensitivity, and low cost. They are used in an increasing number of applications. However, they are easily influenced by environmental effects such as temperature change, shock, and vibration. Thus, signal processing is essential for minimizing errors and improving signal quality and system stability. The aim of this work is to investigate and present a systematic review of different signal error reduction algorithms that are used for MEMS gyroscope-based motion analysis systems for human motion analysis or have the potential to be used in this area. A systematic search was performed with the search engines/databases of the ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, PubMed, and Scopus. Sixteen papers that focus on MEMS gyroscope-related signal processing and were published in journals or conference proceedings in the past 10 years were found and fully reviewed. Seventeen algorithms were categorized into four main groups: Kalman-filter-based algorithms, adaptive-based algorithms, simple filter algorithms, and compensation-based algorithms. The algorithms were analyzed and presented along with their characteristics such as advantages, disadvantages, and time limitations. A user guide to the most suitable signal processing algorithms within this area is presented.

Signal Quality Improvement Algorithms for MEMS Gyroscope-Based Human Motion Analysis Systems: A Systematic Review

This article reviews the use of wearable sensors for the monitoring of physical activity (PA) for different purposes, including assessment of gait and balance, prevention and/or detection of falls, recognition of various PAs, conduction and assessment of rehabilitation exercises and monitoring of neurological disease progression. The article provides in-depth information on the retrieved articles and discusses study shortcomings related to demographic factors, i.e., age, gender, healthy participants vs patients, and study conditions. It is well known that motion patterns change with age and the onset of illnesses, and that the risk of falling increases with age. Yet, studies including older persons are rare. Gender distribution was not even provided in several studies, and others included only, or a majority of, men. Another shortcoming is that none of the studies were conducted in real-life conditions. Hence, there is still important work to be done in order to increase the usefulness of wearable sensors in these areas. The article highlights flaws in how studies based on previously collected datasets report on study samples and the data collected, which makes the validity and generalizability of those studies low. Exceptions exist, such as the promising recently reported open dataset FallAllD, wherein a longitudinal study with older adults is ongoing.

/pdf/a-systematic-review-of-wearable-sensors-for-monitoring-2ku98jsm.pdf

A Systematic Review of Wearable Sensors for Monitoring Physical Activity

An adaptive multi-scale method based on the combination generalized morphological filter (CGMF) is presented for de-noising of the output signal from a MEMS gyroscope. A variational mode decomposition is employed to decompose the original signal into multi-scale modes. After choosing a length selection for the structure element (SE), the adaptive multi-scale CGMF method reduces the noise corresponding to the different modes, after which a reconstruction of the de-noised signal is obtained. From an analysis of the effect of de-noising, the main advantages of the present method are that it: (i) effectively overcomes deficiencies arising from data deviation compared with conventional morphological filters (MFs); (ii) effectively targets the different components of noise and provides efficacy in de-noising, not only primarily eliminating noise but also smoothing the waveform; and (iii) solves the problem of SE-length selection for a MF and produces feasible formulae of indicators such as the power spectral entropy and root mean square error for mode evaluations. Compared with the other current signal processing methods, the method proposed owns a simpler construction with a reasonable complexity, and it can offer better noise suppression effect. Experiments demonstrate the applicability and feasibility of the de-noising algorithm.

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-666X/9/5/246/pdf/1

Improved Morphological Filter Based on Variational Mode Decomposition for MEMS Gyroscope De-Noising.

This paper presents a comparison between different signal processing algorithms applied to a gyro-based computer head mouse for persons with movement disorders. MEMS-gyros can be used to sense the head movement and rotation. However, the measured gyro signals are influenced by noise, offset, drift and especially temperature drift. Thus, there is a need to improve the signal by signal processing algorithms. Different gyros have different characteristics and the algorithms should be useful for any selected MEMS-gyro. In this paper, three different signal processing algorithms were designed and evaluated by simulation in MATLAB and implementation in a dsPIC, with the aim to compensate for the temperature drift problem. The algorithms are high-pass filtering, Kalman algorithm and Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm. Comparisons and system test show that these filters can be used for temperature drift compensation and the Kalman filter showed the best in the application of a MEMS-gyro-based computer head mouse.

Signal processing algorithms for temperauture drift in a MEMS-gyro-based head mouse

In this paper, four different signal processing algorithms which can be applied to reduce the noise from a MEMS-gyroscope-based computer head mouse are presented. MEMS-gyroscopes are small, light, cheap and widely used in many electrical products. MultiPos, a MEMS-gyroscope-based computer head mouse system was designed for persons with movement disorders. Noise such as physiological tremor and electrical noise is a common problem for the MultiPos system. In this study four different signal processing algorithms were applied and evaluated by simulation in MATLAB and implementation in a dsPIC, with aim to minimize the noise in MultiPos. The algorithms were low-pass filter, Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm, Kalman filter and Weighted Fourier Linear Combiner (WFLC) algorithm. Comparisons and system tests show that these signal processing algorithms can be used to improve the MultiPos system. The WFLC algorithm was found the best method for noise reduction in the application of a MEMS-gyroscope-based head mouse.

/pdf/signal-processing-for-mems-sensor-based-motion-analysis-4z44t69poq.pdf

Signal processing for MEMS sensor based motion analysis system

Sensor-based fall risk assessment (SFRA) utilizes wearable sensors for monitoring individuals’ motions in fall risk assessment tasks. Previous SFRA reviews recommend methodological improvements to better support the use of SFRA in clinical practice. This systematic review aimed to investigate the existing evidence of SFRA (discriminative capability, classification performance) and methodological factors (study design, samples, sensor features, and model validation) contributing to the risk of bias. The review was conducted according to recommended guidelines and 33 of 389 screened records were eligible for inclusion. Evidence of SFRA was identified: several sensor features and three classification models differed significantly between groups with different fall risk (mostly fallers/non-fallers). Moreover, classification performance corresponding the AUCs of at least 0.74 and/or accuracies of at least 84% were obtained from sensor features in six studies and from classification models in seven studies. Specificity was at least as high as sensitivity among studies reporting both values. Insufficient use of prospective design, small sample size, low in-sample inclusion of participants with elevated fall risk, high amounts and low degree of consensus in used features, and limited use of recommended model validation methods were identified in the included studies. Hence, future SFRA research should further reduce risk of bias by continuously improving methodology.

Jiaying Du

Papers

Signal Quality Improvement Algorithms for MEMS Gyroscope-Based Human Motion Analysis Systems: A Systematic Review

Signal processing algorithms for temperauture drift in a MEMS-gyro-based head mouse

Signal processing for MEMS sensor based motion analysis system

Performance and Characteristics of Wearable Sensor Systems Discriminating and Classifying Older Adults According to Fall Risk: A Systematic Review

Noise Reduction for a MEMS-Gyroscope-Based Head Mouse.