In psychological research, acquiring information about mental excitement or central nervous activity is fundamental for assessment. Such information can be used as a psychological measure in various investigations like the embodiment of technical artifacts, e.g., in terms of tool use or human-machine systems. A promising method is measuring a subject's electrodermal activity (EDA), i.e., acquiring information about skin conductance or resistance. However, most commercially available measurement systems are expensive and/or not mobile. The system presented in this paper uses low-cost components, has a small footprint, and is easy to rebuilt for scientific applications. It measures EDA by applying a constant voltage and achieves reasonable resolution by individually amplifying slow and fast electrodermal effects, i.e., level and response. Based on a design from the literature, the paper explains the functionality, extensions, and implementation of the system. A comparative study with a commercial laboratory system is conducted and discussed: although the presented system offers a lower resolution, the quality of the recorded data is deemed sufficient for psychological studies. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In this work, a new system is presented to measure load and motion in six degrees of freedom synchronously to assess amputee gait in real time. The device is integrated in the shank of lower limb prostheses to measure the gait parameters based on a combination of AHRS (Attitude Heading Reference System) and a strain gauge pylon. This novel mobile and autonomous system enables new possibilities of amputee gait assessment by gathering both kinds of data. After a presentation of the system, two approaches to calculate the 6×6 calibration matrix of the strain gauge pylon with respect to main channels and cross talk channels are presented and compared. Finally, the data analysis process, a performed pilot study of a transfemoral amputee wearing two different prosthetic feet and consequent load results are discussed.