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Purpose: This study examined the effect of visual feedback squat on the core muscle thickness of young adults experiencing back pain. Methods: Thirty adult men and women who experienced back pain were assigned randomly to 15 members of the visual feedback squat group (VSG) and 15 of the normal squat group (NSG) to train three times a week for a total of eight weeks. The core muscle thickness was compared prior to the test for four weeks and eight weeks after the test by dividing it into warm-up exercise, main exercise, and 10 minutes finishing exercise. Before, and four weeks and eight weeks later, the thickness of the core muscle was compared using an ultra sonic imaging system. Repeated measured ANOVA was performed to compare the groups, and a Bonferroni test was performed as a post-hoc test to assess the significance of the timing of the measurements in each group according to the periods. An independent t-test was conducted to test the significance between the groups according to the measurement points. Results: A significant change in the main effects of time and interactions of the time difference in muscle thickness of transvers abdom inis were observed between the visual feedback squat and control groups according to the measurement point (p 0.05). Conclusion: These findings suggest that visual feedback squat exercise is expected to have positive effects on the development of trans verse abdominis in core muscles.

[Purpose] This study investigated the effect of respiratory exercise on pulmonary function, balance, and gait in chronic stroke patients. [Participants and Methods] Twenty patients with chronic stroke were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (n=10 each). The patients in both groups underwent neurodevelopmental treatment. Moreover, the experimental group performed respiratory exercise. Pulmonary function was measured using a pneumatometer. Balance was measured using a Berg Balance Scale and Functional Reach Test. Gait was measured with a 10-m walk test and Timed Up-and-Go Test. [Results] Intragroup comparison showed significant differences in forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume in one second, Berg Balance Scale, Functional Reach Test, 10-meter walk test, and Timed Up-and-Go Test. Intergroup comparison showed that the differences in forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume in one second, Berg Balance Scale, Functional Reach Test, 10-meter walk test, and Timed Up-and-Go Test for the experimental group were significantly related to those for the control group. [Conclusion] Based on these results it was concluded that respiratory exercise effectively improves the pulmonary function, balance, and gait in patients with chronic stroke.

In this paper, the effects of the plasma density on laser-accelerated electron beams for radiation therapy with a sharp density transition are investigated. In the sharp density-transition scheme for electron injection, the crucial issue is finding the optimum density conditions under which electrons injected only during the first period of the laser wake wave are accelerated further. In this paper, we report particle-in-cell simulation results for the effects of both the scale length and the densitytransition ratio on the generation of a quasi-mono-energetic electron bunch. The effects of both the transverse parabolic channel and the plasma length on the electron-beam’s quality are investigated. Also, we show the experimental results for the feasibility of a sharp density-transition structure. The dosimetric properties of these very high-energy electron beams are calculated using Monte Carlo simulations.

The aim of the present study was to find the optimum dynamic conformal arc (DCA)-based radiosurgery conditions for treatment of patients with intracranial tumors. DCA plans were generated on a commercial treatment-planning system (BrainSCAN v.5.31) for various beam-number and gantry-angle combinations by using computed tomography (CT) scans to delineate the planning target volume (PTV) and the organs at risk (OARs). To evaluate planning quality related to the various planning conditions, we analyzed the dose quality factors (DQFs) for 22 patients as a function of the number and the total angle of arcs related to the target volume, which were determined on the basis of patient-specific features. When the total angle of arcs was less than 250°, the DQF values were under 0.98 (worst group). When the total angle of arcs was more than 350 degrees, the DQF values were maximized, and the highest DQF values (best group, DQF > 0.995) occurred in the range between 50 and 120°/cm3 for the total angle/target volume condition. In this optimal range of angle/volume, the asymmetric distribution of the arcs resulted in decreased DQF values. For a relatively large target volume (more than 10 cm3), the DQF values were lower than these for a relatively small target volume (less than 10 cm3). Re-planning results showed that the planning quality could be improved using optimized planning conditions. We expect that this study will provide a basis for the evaluation of various DCA conditions prior to actual planning and treatment.