Dexterit-E 3.10.3 minor update to support Dexterit-E 3.10

Win OS Compatibility Update, Sept 2024

Dexterit-E 3.10.x will be the LAST version to support Windows 7 OS.  Our hand has been forced based on a critical update to Python that is not supported by Windows 7.

Dexterit-E 3.10.3  March 2024

Dexterit-E 3.10.3 supports some hardware replacements in new Kinarm Labs, fixes an issue with right arm Task Score as reported in a Standard Report for the Elbow Stretch test, as well as introduces some other minor fixes and enhancements.

Elbow Stretch Reports Show Incorrect Task Score for Right Arm

DEX-4848: When determining the Task Score for the right arm to put in the PDF Standard Report for the Elbow Stretch (ES) test, the normative model for the left arm was being used when the report was bilateral (unilateral reports are unaffected).  As this task is completely passive the variation between the left and right normative model was very small, but not zero.  The issue affected the PDF report generated in Dexterit-E and Dexterit-E Explorer only.  The data written when using CSV export of analysis was not affected.

Analysis was performed on numerous pathological ES exams to quantify the error.  It was found that for Task Scores < 4, this error caused a mean change of 0.07 and a maximum change of 0.6 to the right arm Task Score.  See the release notes for plot of change.  This is for 760 pathological ES exams and for Task Scores up to 11.

Dexterit-E 3.10.2 Oct 2023

Dexterit-E 3.10.2 is considered a mandatory update for users of MATLAB 2019b. The release addresses a problem in the Task Development Kit (TDK) and requires tasks to be recompiled after the patch is applied. In addition, KST collected with a prior release of Dexterit-E 3.9 may require re-analyzing.

Kinematics & Exam Events may not increment for 2 Data Frames  

Who is affected: 

You are only affected by this issue if: 

1. You are using MATLAB 2019b. 
2. We have not found any evidence that the problem affected MATLAB 2015aSP1. 
3. Your task was compiled with the 3.10.0 or 3.10.1 TDK 
4. Data is recorded at 1 kHz. 

Root cause of the Problem: The Simulink Rate Transfer block has settings for “Deterministic data transfer”. It was found that this setting was incorrectly off for some of the Rate Transfer blocks that are part of the TDK.  

Effect: 

The effects of this issue manifest in either of two ways: 

1. Any channel of recorded data may have the exact same value for 2 times steps in a row even though the value should change. For position, velocity and acceleration values this should have minimal effect on analysis. Only data recorded at 1 kHz could be affected. 
2. Exam events that are only set in Stateflow for a single Stateflow timestep may be lost. This would be an unusual way for a task to be programmed. This following image illustrates potentially affected vs unaffected exam events. 
3. Video frame acknowledgements may be recorded incorrectly, which will lead Dexterit-E Explorer to incorrectly interpret as video frame drops

 Scope of Impact: Not all tasks (custom or Kinarm Standard) are affected by this issue. Tasks that are affected are inconsistent between Kinarm Labs. If a task is affected on a specific machine, then every run of the task is affected. However, the same task may run without problems on another system. 

The Kinarm Standard Tests that we have found to be affected, the impact and the needed fix are:  

KST	Impact	Dexterit-E version required for analysis.
Ball on Bar	None	Any
Object Hit	Analysis would not complete on affected data.	3.10.2
Spatial Span	None	Any
Trail Making	The % complete of the exam may be incorrect.	3.10.2

These test types were only affected on some Kinarm Labs using MATLAB 2019b. 

 Detection: The only reliable way to tell if this bug has affected your data is to use Dexterit-E Explorer to see if there are regularly recorded video frame drops (single or sporadic drops are not indicative of the bug). The recorded video frame drops are unlikely real, but are a confirmed artifact of the bug. 

If you would like assistance determining if any of your recorded data was affected, then you can use Help -> Generate log in Dexterit-E. The generated ZIP file can be emailed to Support@kinarm.com. 

To correct the problem:  

1. Install the Dexterit-E 3.10.2 Task Development Kit (hyperlink to TDK) 
2. In MATLAB 2019b navigate to the folder where the Simulink model for your task is located 
3. Run cleanslrt() at the MATLAB prompt (this script removes all intermediate generated files) 
4. Compile your task. 
5. Update your version of Dexterit-E to 3.10.2

See the release notes for a full list of new features:

• • Dexterit-E Release Notes 

Dexterit-E 3.10.1 is primarily a minor improvement and bug fix release; it also contains one important bug fix for future hardware updates, but which does not affect any existing customer installations.

(DEX-4735) This is an issue that only affects a subset of newer Kinarm robots with secondary encoders when used with the recently released Dexterit-E computer PN 15012; the issue manifests as an encoder drift error intermittently being reported on system startup. Currently there are no Kinarm Labs in the field with this configuration. Customers with Kinarm Labs purchased since 2016 that upgrade to a Dexterit-E PN 15012 computer should be sure to install at least Dexterit-E version 3.10.1.

• See the release notes for a full list of enhancements:
  • Dexterit-E Release Notes 

After a year and a half of hard work, the design and development teams at Kinarm are pleased to simultaneously release:

• Dexterit-E™ 3.10.0; and
• Dexterit-E Explorer™  3.10.0