HPI - Current Activities



Workshop and Minisymposium at World Congress 2000 in Chicago, July, 2000 (posted 9/9/99)

World Congress 2000 is a joint meeting of several major biomedical engineering societies to mark the new millenium. HPI Director Dr. George Kondraske has organized a two part workshop on Human Performance Modeling and Measurement to be held just prior to the conference as well as a minisymposium on Human Performance Engineering that will be a component of the conference. The workshop is organized in two half-day sessions:

Strategies and Instruments for Human Performance Measurement
Task Analysis, Prediction of High Level Task Performance,
and Identification of Limiting Performance Resources

Registration is structured to allow interested individuals to attend either one or both of these sessions. Content is structured to provide useful knowledge to researchers and practitioners in a wide varieity of applications involving humans and tasks (e.g., rehabilitation, sports/athletics, ergonomics, etc.).

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Baseline Neuropsychologic Performance Testing of Athletes (posted 9/1/99)

Dr. Pamela Beehler, HPI core investigator, is using a subset of the performance capacity measurement instruments developed by HPI and now commercially available through Human Performance Measurement, Inc. in studies aimed at developing criteria for return to play after athletes suffer head trauma. Head trauma in athletes has received increasing attention in recent years. It is hoped that the use of objective measures of centeral processing performance and motor control can provide a quick, objective, and effective means to supplement data used in post-trauma decision-making. Dr. Beehler is currently testing UT Arlington athletes involved in a variety of different sports. The study will investigate correlations between an individual's current status (as determined by selected performance capacities) and head trauma history and also establish baseline data for comparison with post-trauma data.
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Investigating New Methods for Predicting Driving Ability (posted 9/20/99)

Driving is an important task, crucial to the sense of independence of millions of people. Despite considerable research to date, success in predicting an individual's driving performance from laboratory measures (i.e., measurements out of the context of the actual driving task) has been limited. Motivated by success achieved with our new performance theory based method (Nonlinear Causal Resource Analysis, or NCRA) in similar applications, HPI is working with Presbyterian Hospital's Fogelson Neuroscience Center and Baylor Medical Center to address this problem. Carl Fischer, a doctoral candidate in Biomedical Engineering (G. Kondraske, supervising professor) is working on a dissertation aimed at investigating the initial applicability of NCRA to this problem. Subjects with various injuries or disorders representing a wide range of driving abilities are being studied to develop and test an initial predictive model. The primary aim at this stage is to gather evidence to support or reject the applicability of NCRA to this situation. If results are supportive, efforts will be directed to expand data collection to support development of higher fidelity performance models and efficient subject characterization procedures.

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Understanding Clarinetists and the Task of Playing the Clarinet (posted 6/20/99)

In collaboration with the University of North Texas Texas Center for Music Medicine, a study is being conducted to better understand why clarinetists have a high incidence of upper extremity cumulative trauma disorders. HPI developed special instrumentation to meaure and record right hand thumb forces (two orthogonal axes) and acoustical output while playing a specially designed musical piece. In addition, HPM, Inc. Model BEP IX vibration and electrical current sense tests (on selected finger pad sites) are administered before and after playing. Other neuromuscular system performance capacities are also measured using HPM, Inc. Models BEP XII (Hand Performance) and BEP I (Upper Extremity Motor Control). These measurement instruments were developed at HPI. This study is funded in part by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS).
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Jim Carollo Defends Dissertation: New Results on GSPT in Gait (posted 6/16/98)

Jim Carollo successfully defended a dissertation in partial fulfillment of requirements for his doctorate in biomedical engineering on June 16th, 1998. The title of his dissertation is: "A Model of Gait Performance Based on Functional Sub-System Quantification". His supervising professor is Dr. George V. Kondraske. Other committee members are Richard Ashman, Ph.D., Khosrow Behbehani, Ph.D., Frank Gottschalk, M.D., and Elinor S. Pape, Ph.D.

In this project, a new model was developed to predict overall gait performance in mature women at risk for falling, using 12 sub-system performance capacity measures that collectively described their strength, balance, and lower limb coordination. The model was based on an analytical framework refined over the last decade for general systems performance modeling (GSPT), and empirical data collected from female subjects who had documented clinical deficiencies in either strength, balance, or coordination. A total of 31 subjects from 5 different test groups were comprehensively tested on 2 separate occasions. Test results from the 25 subjects in groups I (strength deficient), II (balance deficient), III (coordination deficient), and V (deficit free, normal) were used to derive separate models predicting 3 measures of overall gait performance (walking speed, inverse physiologic cost index: 1/PCI, and expert rating of gait performance) while each subject performed 2 distinct gait tasks (normal and fast speed walking). Corresponding multiple regression models were derived using the same data set, and were compared to the results obtained from the gait performance models using only the data from group IV (documented fallers, n =6, tested twice), which had not been used in either model's derivation.

The results of the analysis showed that the gait performance model successfully predicted expert rating of gait performance in the normal speed walking task to within 20% of the actual values, with 95% confidence.
The corresponding multiple regression models were not able to match this performance. Direct comparison of the these models to their multiple regression counterparts showed that the gait performance models in both the normal and fast speed walking tasks predicted expert rating of gait performance significantly closer to the actual measured values, at an alpha level of 0.05. This substantiates the use of these models for predicting overall gait performance from gait sub-system measures, and provides further justification for the GSPT approach to general human performance modeling.
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Testing Indy Race Car Drivers (posted 6/15/98)

HPI recently has been involved in the measurement of performance capacities of Indy car drivers before and after races and also before and after drivers begin to take selected nutraceuticals with potential performance enhancing effects.

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Nonlinear Causal Resource Analysis (NCRA)

NCRA is a new inferential method (based on General Systems Performance Theory) for quantitative task analysis, predicting performance in a "high level task" (e.g., walking, playing football, driving, etc.), and determining which performance resources are currently limiting an individual from performing the high level task "better". A study (with Texas Woman's University School of Physical Therapy) was completed in mobility related tasks (gait, stair climbing, obstacle course negotiation) in 1997 which yielded encouraging results regarding this new method. A follow-up study is in progress to expand the data pool and examine repeatability of these findings. A conference paper has been presented. Research is also being initiated in other application areas.

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Training and Training Systems

There are several discrete but related efforts related to training systems in which we were involved. Most are based on or closely tied to General Systems Performance Theory (GSPT). One, sponsored by Raytheon (formerly Hughes Training), focuses on training effectiveness. Another effort, sponsored by the higher Education Coordinating Board Texas Advanced Technology Program grant includes Texas A&M University, UT Austin, and the Univ. of Houston at Clearlake. The focus is to utilize GSPT modeling concepts to produce a software toolkit to support training system development. Other similar efforts are in planning toward the aim of computer-based design of training systems with predictable levels of training effectiveness.

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Musician Performance and Health

Since the beginning of 1996, we have been working closely with the University of North Texas (UNT) School of Music and UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth and have been participating in the establishment of the Texas Center for Music and Medicine at UNT. A major part of this Center's research and service activities will include performance theory concepts and utilize measurement instruments developed at HPI.

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Applications in Neurology and Rehabilitation

HPI is working with Presbyterian Health Care System of Dallas to establish the Fogelson Neuroscience Center. A "human performance measurement and assessment" laboratory is being established that will serve both research and service needs. One area of early focus will be driving and specifically, the use of Nonlinear Causal Resource Analysis methods developed at HPI to develop models that can predict when it is unsafe for an individual to drive in a certain driving environment.

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On the Horizon

Check back for news to be reported here in the near future about our research on:

Extremes and Range of Motion Measurement - New Concepts and Tools

Coordination Research


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