The soil was formed in place from the weathering of softly to moderately consolidated granitic sediments. The particle size distribution of the surface soil is 63% sand, 25% silt and 12% clay. At the onset of the experiment, boron tissue levels were in the adequate range, 40 ppm. In both experiments, drip irrigations during the season were based on a schedule using historical evapotranspiration and developed for raisin vineyards in the San Joaquin Valley . The irrigation source was high-quality pump water with a boron concentration less than 0.1 ppm. The experimental design and methods were identical in both vineyards, except that the 1/16-poundper-acre boron treatment was omitted in the second vineyard. The Fresno County trial was discontinued after tissue samples were taken at bloom and veraison in 1998.At both the Tulare and Fresno county sites, boron uptake was rapid when fertilizer was applied in the spring. In both vineyards, applying boron at 2/3 or 1 pound per acre increased the boron concentration in blades by bloom, 3 weeks after application. Boron increased further in blades by veraison . In the Tulare County vineyard, boron in bloom tissue increased from a questionable deficiency range to adequate; at the Fresno location, raspberry container size boron in bloom tissue increased from 40 ppm to 54 ppm, a dramatic increase considering boron fertilizer was applied just 3 weeks prior. This indicates that boron uptake is rapid.
None of the fertigation treatments resulted in either symptoms of boron toxicity or deficiency. Applying boron at 1/3 pound per acre or less did not significantly increase boron tissue levels by bloom or veraison at either site the first year. Fertigation over consecutive years was evaluated at the Tulare County location. Boron in grapevine tissue continued to increase with consecutive years of application. At the higher fertilizer rate , boron levels in blades increased from 35 ppm in control vines to about 60 ppm. We speculate that continuing with annual applications of 1 pound boron per acre would result in toxicity within 4 to 5 years. The 1/3-pound-per-acre rate significantly elevated boron in blades by veraison of the second year to adequate levels . There were no visual signs of toxicity in any of the fertilizer treatments, even when boron was applied at 2 pounds per acre in a single application. Boron levels in tissue remained unchanged 2 years after fertilization was discontinued at the Tulare County location . Rainfall during this experiment was below normal, which helped minimize leaching. Also, well-managed drip irrigation minimizes leaching. Under drip irrigation, salts tend to accumulate near the soil surface and 2 to 3 feet away from the drip line, with minimal water and salt movement below the root zone when irrigations are accurately scheduled . Boron concentrated more in the blades than in the petioles in response to fertilization.
At the onset of the Tulare County experiment, boron concentrations in petioles and blades were similar at 31 ppm and 34 ppm, respectively. Fertilizing with 1 pound boron per acre for 2 consecutive years resulted in a 25% increase of boron in petioles but a 76% increase in blades . Allfertilizer treatments increased boron in blades more than in petioles, indicating that blades should be sampled when monitoring the vines’ boron status following fertilization. Potential boron toxicity values at the time of sampling during the bloom period are 80 ppm for petioles and 120 ppm for blades, and in mid- to late summer are 100 ppm for petioles and 300 ppm for blades.Annual boron fertigation at 1/3 pound per acre elevated grapevine tissue levels from questionable to the adequate range within 2 years . In addition, tissue boron levels remained unchanged 2 years after fertilization was discontinued. This is probably because leaching was reduced by two factors: below-normal rainfall and accurately scheduled drip irrigations. After fertilization, boron was concentrated more in blades than in petioles, indicating that blades are the best choice for monitoring toxicity. Blade samples should be monitored on a routine basis and fertilizer amounts should be adjusted accordingly to avoid boron toxicity or deficiency. The results of this research can be applied to other drip-irrigated vineyards in the San Joaquin Valley under similar conditions: rapidly drained soils, high quality irrigation water, and low boron content in soil, water and vine tissue. In other regions of the state where winter rainfall is much higher, there would presumably be more leaching of boron fertilizer during winter months and less carryover time after fertilization is discontinued. In contrast, less leaching and greater carryover of boron would be expected in areas of less rainfall or on soils with finer texture and higher water-holding capacity.
The amount of boron fertigation used in a maintenance program will vary with leaching potential. These variables underscore the importance of monitoring boron in tissue when developing a long-term fertilization program.Stroke recovery is an exhausting, isolating, and expensive process. Physical therapy to recover limb function and neural pathways is the most expensive part of this process due to the need for frequent one-on-one appointments with physical therapists over the course of months or even years that may not be covered by insurance . In addition, many stroke patients prefer athome rehabilitation whenever possible to allow for more schedule flexibility and to avoid the need to find transportation to what are often extremely distant specialist centers . The need for frequent one-on-one appointments can be reduced through robot-assisted therapy , which improves the quality of both group therapy and at-home physical therapy .Many previous studies have utilized common stroke rehabilitation techniques to create robots to retrain motor movement in the upper limbs by utilizing TST and repetitive motions similar to what a physical therapist might assign as an exercise for a patient . TST can lead to muscle pain and fatigue, however RAT and non-RAT TST have been shown to result in the same level of pain and fatigue for patients . In addition, RAT can include systems to monitor fatigue and pain. Patients also rate higher levels of enjoyment and interest in physical therapy when utilizing these robots, so the only cons in these robots come from their common design traits . For stabilization and ease of calibration, these systems are often large and heavy so the position of the exoskeleton or robotic interface is easily known . This leads to increased costs for consumers in both purchasing the additional bulky casing around the robot as well as creating a space for such personalized gym equipment. In addition, these heavy systems are incredibly difficult for patients to set up at home and can be very confusing . Robotic physical therapy systems also usually deal with a single joint to simplify their control schemes . This means most RAT TST devices only utilize specific muscle groups in a specific part of the body. However, raspberry plant container most people in stroke recovery are attempting to strengthen neural pathways in entire limbs, so RAT for multiple muscle groups can take up a huge amount of space and too much money for at-home usage throughout all of recovery to be feasible. All of these considerations have led to a market where only physical therapy centers and the few who can afford to buy, store, and replace such customized devices are able to utilize them.Drawing therapy is effective because it requires the coordinated and deliberate use of several muscle groups together. In fact, the steadiness, active range of motion, and spatial awareness required to draw a circle have led to the process being used as a common metric of stroke rehabilitation . Increased circle size can be linked to increased active range of motion, as multiple muscle groups must be fully engaged to create a large shape . The roundness of the circle is connected to both hand stability and coordination of muscle groups, as uncoordinated muscles lead to very eccentric ellipses . Creating a robot that can automate this test would allow assessments to be conducted at home or in group settings, reducing the frequency of physical therapy sessions, allowing check-ins to be conducted online, and creating more data for physical therapists to monitor recovery between sessions.
All of these effects would greatly reduce the costs of physical therapy for patients and create better quality remote health-care. Drawing therapy can also help with the psychological issues that can come with a stroke by aiding patients in creative expression and teaching new skills . Many stroke patients are frustrated with their sudden loss of fine motor control, so providing an avenue to gradually regain control where patients can see visible progress helps ease their concerns. Stroke patients often feel isolated and have identity issues due to their loss of motor function and difficulty with the coordination necessary to engage in old hobbies . Drawing and other forms of expression in a group setting can help mitigate these symptoms by providing community and helping the patient develop new hobbies. These hobbies in turn can help motor function as the repetitive and precise motor movements necessary to create art can improve coordination and aROM. Additionally, many artists and professionals who want to draw steady straight lines or curves without using software in a digital medium may benefit from a device that would aid in this task.There are no commercially available assistive devices designed to aid in drawing therapy due to the complexity of predicting both motion and the physical location of the hand to ensure images are drawn as intended, however, it has been proposed that this could be resolved by utilizing surface electromyography sensing, internal measurement units, or similar sensors . Similarly, there are no commercially available robots designed to collect data during circle drawing tests, a common way to determine the active range of motion and recovery of stroke patients . Through our complex controls scheme, we hope to continue to develop a robot with a high enough prediction accuracy, at a marketable cost, to eventually create a robot with the potential of aiding physical therapy centers, stroke rehabilitation patients, professional artists, hobbyists with unsteady hands, and professional craftsmen. We propose a design for a robot that combines sEMG sensing, internal measurement units, and drawing therapy techniques to assist in physical therapy of stroke patients with upper limb weakness. This robotic physical therapy will strengthen neural pathways for motion of the entire arm, providing a way for circle drawing tests to be accurately conducted and drawing therapy to be less frustrating at home. Our design aims to be compact, affordable, and accessible for at-home usage, allowing users to draw with assisted-as-needed technology that will incorporate feedback on their task-specific training , while they attempt to improve their active range of motion or quantify their recovery process.In 2021, we created a series of Arduino robot prototypes as proof of concept for this idea. As part of a course, these initial prototypes were created under extreme budget and time constraints. However, this also means that a final product will likely be affordable for the average consumer; we calculated that our final prototype’s components only totalled a cost of $69, with the potential for a total of $34.39 each in small batch production. Arduino prototypes are on display in Figure 1.Due to the initial budget constraints, our initial prototypes were created with Arduino components and 3D printed parts, as we had access to these from prior coursework. The robot consisted of three main sections: the circuit board, the servo motors, and the 3D printed arm. Our initial circuit board was an Arduino Uno, chosen due to its versatility with hobbyist parts, its utilization of the C++ programming language which we were familiar with, and the fact that we already had access to it. We 3D printed a case for the board to protect it and act as a weight to ensure users could not easily knock the arm over. The purpose of this component was to store code, process the input from our sensor scheme, and anchor the rest of the robot. In addition, we added an internal power supply to this prototype to increase portability. The servo motors are the method through which the robot stabilizes the user’s motion. We used two metal sg90 servos with analog feedback, as this servo model is very cheap, hardy, and can read position while allowing for a large range of motion.