KINGSTON, ON  New KST tests and significant usability enhancements have been released by BKINs Development Team.

BKIN Technologies is pleased to announce the release of version 3.5 of Dexterit-E: BKINs proprietary experiment control software for safe, effective control of KINARM LabsTM. Duncan McLean, Senior Software Developer, noted that this is the highest number of enhancements ever released at one time. They covered a range of Dexterit-E functions and user requests: from custom task control and useability, to enhanced calibration of the KINARM Gaze-Tracker, to new KINARM Standard Tests for our clinical research users. Some of the key enhancements include:

KINARM Standard Tests Enhancements

New KINARM Standard Tests: Ball on Bar and Reverse Visually Guided Reaching.

Ball on Bar is a task for assessing bi-manual dexterity by balancing a ball on a bar held by both hands. As the bar becomes more slippery, bi-manual coordination is challenged (see Lowrey, et al, 2014, doi: 10.4172/2329-9096.S3-002).

Reverse Visually Guided Reaching (RVGR) is similar to the Visually Guided Reaching task, except that the hand feedback moves in the opposite direction of the actual hand. The purpose of the RVGR task is to test cognitive override abilities in neurologically impaired subjects (see Hawkins and Sergio, 2014, doi: 10.3233/JAD-140051).

Normative Data expansion: normative data is now available for the previously released Spatial Span Test and for the 8-target Visually Guided Reaching protocol for End-Point Labs.

Analysis and Reporting: The analysis and reporting framework has been significantly rewritten to make it considerably more efficient. KINARM Standard Test analysis is now about 30% faster.

Custom Task Enhancements

Instructional videos: KINARM Users can create their own task instruction videos in Dexterit-E Explorer 1.2, which is being released at the same time. The operator can display the video to the subject before a Custom Task is run to ensure adherence to the study protocol.

Enhanced Task Control Buttons: Task control buttons can now be grouped together in Dexterit-E. The Simulink® Parameter Table Defn block allows you to define layouts for groups of buttons that will appear in Dexterit-E.

KINARM Gaze-Tracker Enhancements

Calibration routine: KINARM users can now perform several calibration/validation operations on a single subject, then apply the best result. This should reduce the time to conduct subject calibrations.

For the complete details on the Dexterit-E 3.4 and Dexterit-E Explorer 1.2 releases, please see http://support.bkintechnologies.com/downloads/. For information on KINARM Labs, please contact sales@bkintechnologies.com.