PURPOSE To quantify the effect of unstable shoe wearing on muscle activity and haemodynamic response during standing. METHODS Thirty volunteers were divided into 2 groups: the experimental group wore an unstable shoe for 8 weeks, while the control group used a conventional shoe for the same period. Muscle activity of the medial gastrocnemius, tibialis anterior, rectus femoris and biceps femor...

A micropump delivers fluid between different components of a microfluidic device in a controlled manner. The elimination of micropump can reduce the design complexity, simplify fabrication, shrink the device footprint and decrease the set-up time required for the operation of the microfluidic device. One such pumpless microfluidic device for body-on-a-chip application for drug toxicity studies ...

This paper presents a study to experimentally evaluate a new design paradigm for robotic components, with emphasis on space robotics applications. In this design paradigm, robotic components are made from embedded binary actuators and compliant mechanisms in order to reduce weight and complexity. This paper presents a series of five experiments that demonstrate the concept. These studies includ...

BACKGROUND Pressure-related skin lesions on the digits are a significant cause of discomfort. Most foot pain related to ill-fitting shoes occurs in the forefoot and digital areas. Pain has been associated with poor shoe fit, reduced toe box volume, as well as contour and shape of the shoe Off-the-shelf medical-grade footwear is designed as an intervention for chronic lesions on the digits. Thes...

In this paper, a novel approach is made to discard the degradations in full shoe prints and partial shoe prints, in processing those images for recognition. A pass band DCT coefficient has been used to extract feature vectors. A more robust approach has been dealt with to find the matching between the partial shoe prints and the images in the data base. This method makes the shoe print recognit...

There has been a growing trend among shoe manufacturers to introduce customized shoes to satisfy varying customer style, fit, and comfort needs, thus to increase the product’s added value. This study presents a computer-aided design (CAD) system for designing a customized shoe last based on the chosen shoe style and customer’s foot features. The CAD system first automatically extracts 18 import...

The impression of a piece of footwear can potentially lead to 3 identifications, of increasing accuracy; a shoe of a certain size, a shoe of a certain make or a specific shoe. The quality of the print will usually dictate which of these is possible. A vague outline is unlikely to provide conclusive evidence, but could offer some information about the size, and in some cases the brand of a shoe....

BACKGROUND Lunge is one frequently executed movement in badminton and involves a unique sagittal footstrike angle of more than 40 degrees at initial ground contact compared with other manoeuvres. This study examined if the shoe heel curvature design of a badminton shoe would influence shoe-ground kinematics, ground reaction forces, and knee moments during lunge. METHODS Eleven elite and fifte...