In this case report, we report the absence of the fourth tendon of flexor digitorium superficialis (FDS) to the little finger with a concurrent anomalous muscular belly of flexor digitorum profundus (FDP) in the palm. The FDS originated from the medial epicondyle, divided into three tendons for the index, middle and ring fingers with the little finger devoid of any attachment. The FDP exhibited a muscular belly which passed deep to the flexor retinaculum (FR) and continued for another 4 cm thereby dividing into four slips for the index, middle, ring and little fingers. The presence of the muscular belly of the FDP lead us to think whether it was an adhesion between the tendons of the FDP, so we proceeded to histological analysis. The tissue was processed and stained with Hematoxylin and Eosin. Abundant longitudinal muscle fibers with peripherally situated nuclei confirmed it to be a skeletal muscle. Absence of the tendon of FDS to little finger may influence the flexion movement in the middle and proximal interphalangeal joints. Presence of anomalous muscle belly of FDP in the palm may mimic any soft tissue tumour, compress neurovascular structures or even pose difficulty while performing tendon transplant surgeries.
We present a 20-year-old Malay male whom we believe has Proteus syndrome, a rare congenital disorder of asymmetrical overgrowth of body tissues. There are fewer than 100 confirmed cases reported worldwide thus the clinical presentation and histopathological findings are of significance. Our patient presented with an overgrown right small finger and subcutaneous purplish pigmentation over his left upper arm and chest since birth. His small finger gradually increased in size. He had no abnormalities in sensation or power. Radiographs revealed a delta shaped middle phalanx of the small finger. His activities of daily living were uninterrupted but he requested debulking surgery for cosmetic reasons. Histopathological examination reported hypertrophic fatty tissue composed of well formed lobules of mature adipocytes interspersed with fibrous elements.
Kebahagiaan adalah rasa kesejahteraan, kegembiraan atau kepuasan yang boleh membawa kepada satu bentuk emosi yang positif dalam diri seseorang pekerja. Namun kebahagiaan akan merosot akibat daripada tekanan kerja dan masalah yang berkaitan dengan kesihatan. Kebanyakan pekerja tidak menyedari akan bahaya tekanan kerja yang pada akhirnya akan mengakibatkan kemerosotan kesihatan. Kajian ini dijalankan adalah bertujuan untuk mengenal pasti status kebahagiaan dan tekanan yang dihadapi oleh staf Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) serta mengukur kos kesihatan yang terpaksa ditanggung oleh mereka. Seramai 100 orang staf UMT, di mana 50 orang staf daripada bahagian akademik dan 50 orang staf daripada bukan akademik telah terlibat dalam kajian ini. Satu set soal selidik digunakan sebagai instrumen kajian. Data dianalisis dengan menggunakan perisian SPSS versi 20.0. Secara keseluruhannya, dapatan kajian menunjukkan bahawa terdapat hubungan yang signifikan antara faktor tekanan kerja dan kebahagiaan. Majoriti staf UMT menyatakan bahawa mereka bahagia ketika berada di tempat kerja iaitu sebanyak 78 peratus. Jumlah kos langsung perbelanjaan kesihatan yang terpaksa ditanggung oleh responden adalah RM2,220, manakala jumlah kos tidak langsung pula adalah RM1,4376.41. Antara kes tertinggi yang dirujuk ke pusat rawatan adalah berkaitan dengan tekanan darah tinggi. Oleh itu, kesedaran dalam kalangan pekerja dari segi cara mengawal tekanan mereka adalah penting untuk mencapai kesihatan yang baik seterusnya merasa bahagia apabila membuat kerja.
Posterior interosseus artery flap is commonly used as a pedicle flap to cover soft tissue defect in the dorsum of the hand. It is not able to cover a soft tissue defect beyond the level of proximal phalang unless it is used as a free flap. We illustrate 2 cases in which large soft tissue defect in the finger was able to close by using a contralateral posterior interosseous flap. This technique is a reliable alternative method for closing large soft tissue defect in the fingers.
This study investigated the functional specialisation characteristics of brain in multiple right-hand dominant subjects pertaining to the activation of the cerebral motor cortices evoked by unilateral finger tapping, especially in primary motor (M1) and supplementary motor (SMA) areas. This multiple-subject study used unilateral (UNIright and UNIleft) selfpaced tapping of hand fingers to activate the M1 and SMA. Brain activation characteristics were analysed using statistical parametric mapping (SPM). Activation for UNIright and UNIleft showed the involvement of contralateral and ipsilateral M1 and SMA. A larger activation area but with a lower percentage of signal change (PSC) were observed in the left M1 due to the control on UNIright (4164 voxels at a = 0.001, PSC = 1.650) as compared to the right M1 due to the control on UNIleft (2012 voxels at a = 0.001, PSC = 2.377). This is due to the influence of the tapping rate effects which is greater than what could be produced by the average effects of the dominant and sub-dominant hands. The significantly higher PSC value observed in the right M1 (p < 0.05) is due to a higher control demand used by the brain in coordinating the tapping of the sub-dominant fingers. The findings obtained from this study showed strong evidence of the existence of brain functional specialisation and could be used as baseline references in determining the most probable motor pathways in a sample of subjects.
In an earlier study, a three-fingered robot hand was developed for assembly work. Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) control was used to control the position of a DC micromotor measured by an encoder. However, PID control alone could not cater the nonlinearities due to friction of gears and varying loads applied to the finger. Therefore, in order to develop an intelligent control algorithm in future, the effects of varying PID gains need to be investigated to distinguish the optimal value that could produce the best transient response performance. This paper discusses the effect of varying PID gains on position transient response of the joint motor of robot hand through real-time experiments. Several ranges of KP, KI and KD were identified based on the required transient response parameters such as percentage overshoot (%OS), settling time (TS) of within 2%, steady state error (SSE) and rise time (TR). The gains are tuned across the range by a fixed interval with the tuning order starting from KP, KI and KD. It can be observed that the suitable ranges of PID are 0.3 to 0.5 for KP, 1.15 to 1.45 for KI and 0.10 to 0.14 for KD. Meanwhile, the optimum value of 0.4, 1.45 and 0.10 for KP, KI and KD respectively is found to produce 0 of % OS, 5.09 sec of TS and 2.48 sec of TR. Hence, the gains can be applied to the development of an improved position control using intelligent method for the robot hand in future works.
Three patients with severe fixed flexion deformity of the fingers caused by trauma were reported. As an alternative treatment, a new mini external fixator was used to correct the deformities. The use of this device has made treatment of contractures simpler and more predictable. Gradual distraction and straightening was applied to loosen and extend the joints, followed by a period of mobilisation while still on the device. In all the three patients, this experimental device and approach led to improvement of the fixed flexion deformities. With use of this device, surgical release may not be necessary.
In this paper, a personal verification method using finger vein is presented. Finger vein can be considered more secured compared to other hands based biometric traits such as fingerprint and palm print because the features are inside the human body. In the proposed method, a new texture descriptor called local line binary pattern (LLBP) is utilized as feature extraction technique. The neighbourhood shape in LLBP is a straight line, unlike in local binary pattern (LBP) which is a square shape. Experimental results show that the proposed method using LLBP has better performance than the previous methods using LBP and local derivative pattern (LDP).
The sense of touch allows us to infer objects' physical properties, while the same input also produces affective sensations. These affective sensations are important for interpersonal relationships and personal well-being, which raises the possibility that tactile preferences are adapted to the characteristics of the skin. Previous studies examined how physical properties such as surface roughness and temperature influence affective sensations; however, little is known about the effect of compliance (physical correlate of softness) on pleasantness. Thus, we investigated the psychophysical link between softness and pleasantness. Pieces of human skin-like rubber with different compliances were pressed against participants' fingers. Two groups of participants numerically estimated the perceived magnitude of either pleasantness or softness. The perceived magnitude of pleasantness and softness both increased monotonically as a function of increasing object compliance, levelling off at around the end of the stimulus range. However, inter-subject variability was greater for pleasantness than for perceived softness, whereas the slope of the linear function fit to the magnitude estimates was steeper for softness than for pleasantness. These results indicate that object compliance is a critical physical determinant for pleasantness, whereas the effect of compliance on pleasantness was more variable among individuals than the effect on softness was.
Nail bed injuries were commonly found concomitantly with fingertip injuries. Reconstruction of fingertip including the nail bed should be attempted at acute stage. Aim of the surgery was to restore as much finger length and achieve normal nail growth. In chemical burns, the initial presentation might not reflect the exact extent of injury. Appropriate acute management must be initiated while waiting for demarcation. We report a case of young stewardess who presented with fingertip chemical burn injury. Surgical debridement was done on third day post-injury. A cross-finger flap to cover skin defect and split-thickness nail bed grafting from the remnant of injured finger were done. Excellent functional and cosmetic outcome was achieved in 6 months. Surgical treatment in a chemical burn was similar to traumatic injury. Nail bed graft was the best option for nail bed reconstruction. In cases of soft tissue loss, advancement or pedicle flaps are beneficial.
Due to unavailability of a computer keyboard layout for the Jawi script, users of this script make use of the Arabic keyboard layout for typing texts in this particular script. Obviously, the layout of the Arabic script keyboard is not designed for the ancient writing of the Jawi script. Keeping this in view, a research was conducted to design a new keyboard layout suitable for the users of the Jawi script from an ergonomics point of view, and the outcome of the research is presented in this study. In order to design the Jawi script keyboard layout, the relative finger strengths of both male and female subjects were determined experimentally. The relative frequency of the characters and two special characters (full-stop and comma) that appeared in the script were determined by counting their presence in a large number of texts in the script that represent the workload of the fingers. The keys were rearranged in such a way that the workload of each finger was approximately matched with its relative strength. The newly proposed arrangement of the keys was not much different compared to the Arabic script keyboard layout, and hence it is convenient for users to switch between the layouts.
In this multiple-subject study, intrinsic couplings between the primary motor (M1) and supplementary motor areas (SMA) were investigated. Unilateral (UNIright and UNIleft) self-paced tapping of hand fingers were performed to activate M1 and SMA. The intrinsic couplings were analysed using statistical parametric mapping, dynamic causal modeling (DCM) and Bayesian model analysis. Brain activation observed for UNIright and UNIleft showed contralateral and ipsilateral involvement of M1 and SMA. Ten full connectivity models were constructed with right and left M1 and SMA as processing centres. DCM indicated that all subjects prefer M1 as the intrinsic input for UNIright and UNIleft as indicated by a large group Bayes factor (GBF). Positive evidence ratio (PER) that showed strong evidence of Model 3 and Model 6 against other models in at least 12 out of 16 subjects, supported GBF results. The GBF and PER results were later found to be consistent with that of BMS for group studies with high expected posterior probability and exceedance probability. It was concluded that during unilateral finger tapping, the contralateral M1 would act as the input centre which in turn triggered the propagation of signals to SMA in the same hemisphere and to M1 and SMA in the opposite hemisphere.
Haptic sensors are essential devices that facilitate human-like sensing systems such as implantable medical devices and humanoid robots. The availability of conducting thin films with haptic properties could lead to the development of tactile sensing systems that stretch reversibly, sense pressure (not just touch), and integrate with collapsible. In this study, a nanocomposite based hemispherical artificial fingertip fabricated to enhance the tactile sensing systems of humanoid robots. To validate the hypothesis, proposed method was used in the robot-like finger system to classify the ripe and unripe tomato by recording the metabolic growth of the tomato as a function of resistivity change during a controlled indention force. Prior to fabrication, a finite element modeling (FEM) was investigated for tomato to obtain the stress distribution and failure point of tomato by applying different external loads. Then, the extracted computational analysis information was utilized to design and fabricate nanocomposite based artificial fingertip to examine the maturity analysis of tomato. The obtained results demonstrate that the fabricated conformable and scalable artificial fingertip shows different electrical property for ripe and unripe tomato. The artificial fingertip is compatible with the development of brain-like systems for artificial skin by obtaining periodic response during an applied load.
Absence of the distal crease of the fingers is usually associated with a flexion deformity. A single crease of one or more fingers is found in many syndromes. We present this report as a rare case of absence of interphalangeal crease of the right ring finger with restriction of flexion but without any other anomaly.
The importance of bacteria-suspending media and fingertip positions on the survival of Vibrio cholerae on human fingertips were examined. Vibrios were suspended in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), PBS with albumin, and PBS with agarose. Each type of preparation was inoculated on the fingerpads, the hyponychia, or the eponychia and lateral nail grooves of the fourth, third and second fingers of a volunteer's hand. The last finger inoculated was immediately washed with PBS and the washing collected for examination ("0 minute" exposure). The third and fourth inoculated fingers were likewise washed for examination 2 and 5 minutes later, respectively. The vibrios obtained from the washings were enumerated by culture. For each of the different groups, which consisted of a different inoculated fingertip position, bacteria-suspending medium and exposure period of 2 or 5 minutes, the proportion of replicate inoculated fingers which retained viable vibrios (isolation rate) and the mean number of surviving vibrios, as a percentage of the inoculated vibrios at "0 minute exposure" (survival rate) were as follows: finger pads: vibrios in PBS, 2 minutes post-inoculation (isolation rate, 25%; mean survival rate, 0.002%); 5 minutes post-inoculation (isolation rate, 0%; mean survival rate, 0%). PBS-albumin: 2 minutes post-inoculation (60%, 0.004%); 5 minutes post-inoculation (40%, 0.03%). PBS-agarose: 2 minutes post-inoculation (100%, 24%); 5 minutes post-inoculation (38%, 0.005%). Lateral nail grooves and eponychia: PBS: 2 minutes post-inoculation (100%, 2.2%); 5 minutes post-inoculation (44%, 0.2%). PBS-agarose: 2 minutes post-inoculation (100%, 32%); 5 minutes post-inoculation (100%, 0.7%). Hyponychia: PBS: 2 minutes post-inoculation (100%, 8%); 5 minutes post-inoculation (100%, 0.2%). PBS-agarose: 2 minutes post-inoculation (100%, 46%); 5 minutes post-inoculation (100%, 8%). The results show that vibrios in moisture-retaining medium (PBS-agarose) and inoculated on a sheltered fingertip locations (hyponychium) have the best survival rates. However, the high survival rate was maintained briefly.
Pyogenic granuloma, also known as lobular capillary hemangioma, is a benign vascular lesion of the skin or mucous membrane with rapid growth or repetitive trauma. Rarely seen in adult, its management varies and surgical intervention is usually common. We report a case of pyogenic granuloma of the right index finger in a 46-year-old gentleman who presented with painless swelling of the right index finger after a trivial injury. Wedge biopsy confirmed the diagnosis and excision of the granuloma measuring 3 cm × 3 cm × 2 cm was done with curettage and electrocautery over the base of granuloma. The wound subsequently healed well with good functional and aesthetic outcome.
A case of zoonotic onchocercosis has been found in a resident who lived in Iizuka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan for some time. A 24-year-old male developed a painful nodule on the middle finger of his right hand. The nodule was surgically removed from the vagina fibrosa tendinis of the finger at Beppu Medical Center, Beppu City, Oita Prefecture in 2012. The causative agent was identified as a female Onchocerca dewittei japonica based on its histopathological characteristics. The identity of the filarioid has been confirmed by sequencing the cox1 gene. The present study indicates that the zoonotic onchocercosis caused by O. dewittei japonica has been concentrated in northeast Kyushu.