OBJECTIVE Quantification of the maximum anatomical cross-sectional area of the lumbar back muscles as a function of torso flexion angle and development of prediction equations as a function of torso flexion and anthropometric measures. BACKGROUND Cross-sectional areas of the lumbar back muscles used as inputs into biomechanical models have traditionally been derived from subjects lying in the...

Walking humans respond to pulls or pushes on their upper body by changing where they place their foot on the next step. Usually, they place their foot further along the direction of the upper body perturbation. Here, we examine how this foot placement response is affected by the average step width during walking. We performed experiments with humans walking on a treadmill, both normally and at ...

BACKGROUND CONTEXT Accurate anatomical inputs for biomechanical models are necessary for valid estimates of internal loading. The magnitude of the moment arm of the lumbar erector muscle group is known to vary as a function of such variables as gender. Anatomical evidence indicates that the moment arms decrease during torso flexion. However, moment arm estimates in biomechanical models that acc...

In this paper, a textile-based respiratory sensing system is presented. Highly flexible polymeric optical fibres (POFs) that react to applied pressure were integrated into a carrier fabric to form a wearable sensing system. After the evaluation of different optical fibres, different setups were compared. To demonstrate the feasibility of such a wearable sensor, the setup featuring the best perf...

although lot streaming scheduling is an active research field, lot streaming flexible flow lines problems have received far less attention than classical flow shops. this paper deals with scheduling jobs in lot streaming flexible flow line problems. the paper mathematically formulates the problem by a mixed integer linear programming model. this model solves small instances to optimality. moreo...

The traditional individual 3D virtual humand modeling method has drawbacks of mass data and complex post-processing. It doesn’t suit the Web application. The research presented in this paper is to propose a novel real-time approach of 3D human parameterized modeling based on anthropometry. According to the principle in Anthropometry and Anatomy, the model surface is divided into several parts. ...

Moving the torso laterally in a walking biped robot can be mechanically more torque-e±cient than not moving the torso according to recent research. Motivated by this observation, a torque-e±cient torso-moving balance control strategy of a walking biped robot subject to a persistent continuous external force is suggested and veri ̄ed in this paper. The torso-moving balance control strategy consis...

A thermographic technique is described that uses cholesteric liquid crystals that change color in response to variations in surface temperature. The crystals are embedded in elastic flexible sheets that conform to the contours of the torso and extremities. The technique is well suited to temperature measurement of individual skin dermatomes and myotomes. Typical heat patterns emanating from the...