Sideways Walking Research Articles

Walking sideways? Management of the Norwegian snow crab fishery

The snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio) in the Barents Sea is an invasive species, first discovered in 1997. Since 2012, a commercial fishery has developed, and various management measures have been implemented. Despite fishing gear restrictions, limits for the catch season and the implementation of a TAC-regime in 2017 onwards, the fishery struggles with substantial sustainability challenges. Vessels allocated a licence demonstrate radical differences in catches, and the fleet suffers from an unprofitable overcapacity and lack of environmentally friendly harvesting operations. The management authorities and the fishermen's organizations seem to agree that the regulated open access and the Olympic fisheries model are the main sources of the present problems. The Directorate of Fisheries (DoF) [1] has introduced a discussion paper outlining various options for closing the fishery. The article outlines these- and other options, and discusses the alternatives in terms of improved sustainability, i.e., environmental, economic as well as social. A key point is that closing the fishery (like many other management measures), are not only technical interventions. They are also political, and they contribute to modify both the regulating system and the system to be regulated.

Intra-rater reliability, minimum detectable change, and sensitivity of equilibrium coordination tests for school-going children

Abstract Reliability and other properties for most equilibrium coordination tests have not been established yet among children. Hence, the aim of the present study was to find out the intra-rater reliability, minimum detectable change, and sensitivity of sideways walking, tandem walking, cross-stepping, heel walking, and toe walking among children. 1,104 children of age group 8-17 years with convenient sampling were recruited for the study. Children were asked to perform sideways walking, tandem walking, cross-stepping, heel walking, and toe walking in a non-orderly fashion one by one, and three readings were obtained. The time taken (in seconds) was recorded through calibrated stopwatch. Relative reliability was determined through the Intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC3,1) and Cronbach’s alpha, while the coefficient of variation (CV%) and standard error of mean (SEM) were used to establish absolute reliability. The sensitivity of the tests was evaluated by comparing the values of the smallest worthwhile change (SWC) and SEM. minimum detectable change at 95% confidence interval (MDC95) was also estimated. Intra-rater reliability of sideways walking, tandem walking, cross stepping, heel walking, and toe walking to cover a 10 m distance was estimated as 0.97, 0.98, 0.98, 0.94, and 0.97, respectively. Excellent absolute reliability of the tests was established with values less than one. Sensitivity was found to be ‘Good’ for all the tests. Sideways walking, tandem walking, cross-stepping, heel walking, and toe walking are highly reliable tools for the assessment of coordination among children. Registered on Clinical trials with trial no. NCT05159297.

Butterflies

Butterflies

Pengembangan Motorik Kasar melalui Kegiatan Senam Kreasi pada Anak PAUD Balai Pengajian Baitul Ishlah Lhokseumawe

This study aims to develop children's gross motor skills through creative gymnastics activities at the Baitul Ishlah Lhokseumawe Study Center. The type of research used is classroom action research. The technique of collecting data using interviews, observation, and documentation with qualitative descriptive data analysis techniques. The results showed that creative gymnastics activities can develop gross motor skills of the children in the Baitul shlah Lhokseumawe Research Center. Cycle I show the gross motor development of children who have not developed as many as 4 children or 11 children who are developin and those who are developing according to expectations and developing very well do not exist. In the second cycle, there was gross motoric development of the children, namely 13 very well-developed children and 2 children who developed according to expectations, while there were no more children who began to develop and had not developed. As for how to develop children's gross motor skills through creative gymnastics activities carried out by the steps 1) Stand up straight while stretching out your arms as in a prayer movement, opening your legs and looking forward. 2) do the walking in place, stretch your hands to the left and right then swing your hands forward while shaking them. 3) Walk sideways to the left and right while shaking hands, cutting right and left movements while stomping alternately. 4) The legs are shoulder-width apart, arms straight up and do up and down movements forwards and backwards and leaning the left and right sides.

Influence of Walking as Physiological Training to Improve Respiratory Parameters in the Elderly Population.

Walking as physiological training is reported to be an effective activity in order to beneficially influence and slow the onset of aging in healthy elderly people. However, insufficient evidence exists on how walking influences lung function in seniors. In our study, we aim to evaluate the effect of different types of walking on lung function in healthy seniors. The PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus and EBSCO Essentials databases were searched, while the methodological quality was assessed by the RoB2 tool. A total of seven studies (RCTs) published between 2002–2022 that met the eligibility criteria were analysed in this review. All participants were older adults without any specific associated disease, aged 60 and above. The interventions included structured physical activity; a high/moderate exercise program; long-term regular walking; walking as a part of functional movement training; walking sideways, backward and forward as a part of aerobic training; fast walking; Stepper walking; walking on a treadmill combined with incentive spirometry; and Nordic walking. Overall, most of the mentioned types of walking led to improved lung function in healthy elderly subjects. However, the prescribed Stepper walking program did not improve lung function in healthy seniors.

Sideways crab-walking is faster and more efficient than forward walking for a hexapod robot

Articulated legs enable the selection of robot gaits, including walking in different directions such as forward or sideways. For longer distances, the best gaits might maximize velocity or minimize the cost of transport (COT). While animals often have morphology suited to walking either forward (like insects) or sideways (like crabs), hexapod robots often default to forward walking. In this paper, we compare forward walking with crab-like sideways walking. To do this, a simple gait design method is introduced for determining forward and sideways gaits with equivalent body heights and step heights. Specifically, the frequency and stride lengths are tuned within reasonable constraints to find gaits that represent a robot’s performance potential in terms of speed and energy cost. Experiments are performed in both dynamic simulation in Webots and a laboratory environment with our 18 degree-of-freedom hexapod robot, Sebastian. With the common three joint leg design, the results show that sideways walking is overall better (75% greater walking speed and 40% lower COT). The performance of sideways walking was better on both hard floors and granular media (dry play sand). This supports development of future crab-like walking robots for future applications. In future work, this approach may be used to develop nominal gaits without extensive optimization, and to explore whether the advantages of sideways walking persist for other hexapod designs.

Aquatic Therapy Intervention, Including the 4-Walls Drill, for Persons With Hoehn and Yahr Stage IV Parkinson's Disease: A Retrospective Data Analysis

Background and Purpose: Individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) experience a decline in functional mobility secondary to the associated motor symptoms of festinating gait, rigidity, bradykinesia, and postural instability. The objectives of this study were to determine the feasibility of the 4-walls drill for individuals with Hoehn and Yahr stage IV (H&Y IV) PD and evaluate the effect of an aquatic therapy (AT) intervention on land-based gait speed. Methods: A retrospective data analysis was performed after 4 individuals completed an AT program incorporating the 4-walls drill. Primary outcome of gait speed was measured via land-based 4-m walk test (4MWT). Secondary outcome measures in the aquatic environment included 60-second sit-to-stand (STS) test, forward walking speed, and number of steps for backward and sideways walking. A Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to determine significance, with significance set at .05. Results: No adverse events were reported. Analysis of pre- and posttreatment scores revealed no significant difference in the 4MWT (P = .068), 60-second STS test (P = 1.0), and forward (P = .144), backward (P = .93), and sideways (P = .144) walking. Conclusion: The 4-walls drill is a safe and feasible intervention for persons with H&Y IV PD. The results did not show a statistically significant improvement in land-based gait speed or aquatic outcome measures. One subject continued to receive AT for an additional 5 visits and demonstrated continued improvement across all aquatic outcome measures. Future research with a larger sample size and longer intervention duration is needed.

Building an allocentric travelling direction signal via vector computation.

Many behavioural tasks require the manipulation of mathematical vectors, but, outside of computational models1-7, it is not known how brains perform vector operations. Here we show how the Drosophila central complex, a region implicated in goal-directed navigation7-10, performs vector arithmetic. First, we describe a neural signal in the fan-shaped body that explicitly tracks the allocentric travelling angle of a fly, that is, the travelling angle in reference to external cues. Past work has identified neurons in Drosophila8,11-13 and mammals14 that track the heading angle of an animal referenced to external cues (for example, head direction cells), but this new signal illuminates how the sense of space is properly updated when travelling and heading angles differ (for example, when walking sideways). We then characterize a neuronal circuit that performs an egocentric-to-allocentric (that is, body-centred to world-centred) coordinate transformation and vector addition to compute the allocentric travelling direction. This circuit operates by mapping two-dimensional vectors onto sinusoidal patterns of activity across distinct neuronal populations, with the amplitude of the sinusoid representing the length of the vector and its phase representing the angle of the vector. The principles of this circuit may generalize to other brainsand to domains beyond navigation where vector operations or reference-frame transformations are required.

Walking Sideways into Paradise: Desire and Degeneration in Lord Alfred Douglas's Animal Nonsense

Walking Sideways into Paradise: Desire and Degeneration in Lord Alfred Douglas's Animal Nonsense

EFFICACY OF OTAGO EXERCISE VERSUS BOSU BALL EXERCISE IN BALANCE-IMPAIRED ELDERLY PEOPLE

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare the effect of OTAGO exercise and BOSU ball exercise on balance training among geriatric population. Geriatric indicates the elderly people with age group more than 60. Balance is the state of equilibrium; three sensors drive a sense of balance (vision, proprioception, and vestibular). As the age increases, there will be some degenerative changes, the loss of any one of these systems affects balance which may result in falls and increased morbidity. The study focuses on the effectiveness of OTAGO exercise and BOSU ball exercise in elderly people.
 Methodology: Thirty subjects were selected and divided into two groups based on selection criteria with age group between 60-70, both male and female, people who scored 35–45 in Berg balance scale (BBS) grading test and four in fall risk assessment questionnaire was included and people with recent fracture and surgery, stroke, parkinson’s disease, psychiatric illness, severe pain, and muscle weakness were excluded from the study. Pre-test was done using BBS as an outcome measure, proceeding with treatment protocol; Group A: received BOSU ball exercise (unilateral heel raise, one leg stand, knee bend, split stance with torso rotation, and marching) for 30 min – each set of exercise was given for 5–8 repetition with rest period of 2 min. Group B received OTAGO exercise (Backward walking, sideways walking, toe walking, sit to stand, and one leg stand) for 30 min – each set of exercise was given for 5–8 repetition with rest period of 2 min. After the cessation of the treatment protocol, post-test was done using the same outcome measure.
 Results: Result of the study proves that each group shows p value (p≤0.001); however, Group A (BOSU ball exercise) shows more significant improvement than Group B (OTAGO exercise).
 Conclusion: Conclusion of the study shows that both BOSU ball exercise and OTAGO exercise were effective in improving balance among elderly people. However, BOSU ball exercise was better than OTAGO exercise in improving balance among elderly people.

Improved Position Accuracy of Foot-Mounted Inertial Sensor by Discrete Corrections from Vision-Based Fiducial Marker Tracking.

In this paper, we present a novel pedestrian indoor positioning system that uses sensor fusion between a foot-mounted inertial measurement unit (IMU) and a vision-based fiducial marker tracking system. The goal is to provide an after-action review for first responders during training exercises. The main contribution of this work comes from the observation that different walking types (e.g., forward walking, sideways walking, backward walking) lead to different levels of position and heading error. Our approach takes this into account when accumulating the error, thereby leading to more-accurate estimations. Through experimentation, we show the variation in error accumulation and the improvement in accuracy alter when and how often to activate the camera tracking system, leading to better balance between accuracy and power consumption overall. The IMU and vision-based systems are loosely coupled using an extended Kalman filter (EKF) to ensure accurate and unobstructed positioning computation. The motion model of the EKF is derived from the foot-mounted IMU data and the measurement model from the vision system. Existing indoor positioning systems for training exercises require extensive active infrastructure installation, which is not viable for exercises taking place in a remote area. With the use of passive infrastructure (i.e., fiducial markers), the positioning system can accurately track user position over a longer duration of time and can be easily integrated into the environment. We evaluated our system on an indoor trajectory of 250 m. Results show that even with discrete corrections, near a meter level of accuracy can be achieved. Our proposed system attains the positioning accuracy of 0.55 m for a forward walk, 1.05 m for a backward walk, and 1.68 m for a sideways walk with a 90% confidence level.

Sideways Walking Control of a Cyborg Beetle

Cyborg insect also referred as insect-machine hybrid robot, consists of a living insect platform and an electronic backpack mounted on. The small size and magnificent walking ability of the insect make this hybrid system a potential candidate for search and rescue missions. The great locomotory capability helps the insect to cope with the complex and unpredictable terrains, whereas the tiny dimension allows it to easily enter the debris of post-disaster sites. There is a necessity to establish more controllable mobility for cyborg insects to develop more efficient maneuver plans. Here, this study demonstrates the control of sideways and forward walking in a cyborg beetle by emulating the touch responses of mechanoreceptors on the insect's elytra using the electrical stimulation. The beetle walked sideways leftward when the right elytron was stimulated, and vice versa. The forward control was attained by stimulating both elytra simultaneously. In addition, these elicited motions were found to be graded by tuning the stimulation frequency as increasing the frequency sped up the sideways walking and slowed down the forward velocity. Besides complementing the controllability of the cutting-edge cyborg insects, this graded response is essential for improving the navigation in cyborg insects for search and rescue missions.

Physical, physiological, and technical demands of national netball umpires at different competition levels

ABSTRACT To compare demands of national netball umpires between levels of competition, 22 Netball New Zealand high-performance umpires participated in this investigation. These included from highest to lowest standard: 9 × semi-professional ANZ Championships (ANZC); 6 × National A Squad (NZA); and 7 × National Development Squad (DEV). Physical (global positioning system tri-axial accelerometry), physiological (heart rate) and technical (video analysis) demands were determined for 48 (16 per group) umpire match performances. Level of competition had no significant effect on physical or mean physiological demands. However, ANZC umpires spent a lower proportion of time at low heart rates compared to DEV, and a greater proportion of time at high, rather than moderate, heart rates compared to NZA. Compared to lower standard umpires, ANZC spent lesser proportions of time standing but greater proportions of time walking backwards and sideways, and turning to change direction. Furthermore, ANZC umpires spent lower proportions of time jogging, but greater proportions of time sprinting compared to DEV. Finally, ANZC umpires spent longer mean durations than DEV on the goal third side line. As such, the difference in demands experienced by national netball umpires between levels of competition is more technical than physical or physiological.

Unidirectional and bidirectional flow in a narrow corridor with body rotation

In this paper, we developed a new pedestrian model, where pedestrians are represented with three circles and rotate their body to avoid others. In most pedestrian models, the body posture of pedestrians is statically connected with the walking direction; however, they may become different in our model, in other words, pedestrians can walk sideways. We conducted simulation on bidirectional flow in a narrow corridor where body rotation is necessary to avoid collisions and succeeded to reproduce realistic fundamental diagram.

Comparing the Effects of Different Types of Aquatic Walking on Endurance and Electrical Activities of Spine Extensor Muscles in Men with Nonspecific Chronic Back Pain.

Background:Chronic back pain is one of the most challenging medical problems worldwide that results in disability, physical problems, and high costs for the family and society. Therefore, it can be very beneficial to find an appropriate treatment with minimum side-effects for this disease. The present study attempted to compare the effects of different water gait protocols on the endurance and electrical activity of spine extensor muscles in men with nonspecific chronic back pain.Methods:The study adopted an experimental design in which 30 men with non-specific chronic back pain were selected through convenience sampling and using simple randomization method assigned into three groups of forward walking, backward walking, and sideways walking. Walking exercises were performed for 8 weeks, three sessions per week for 30 min. Twenty-four hours before and 48 h after the intervention, the endurance of spine extensor muscles and electrical activities were measured using the Ito test and electromyography, respectively. Data were analyzed in SPSS 23 using paired sample t-test and analysis of variance.Results:The results showed that backward walking in water significantly increases endurance and electromyography activities of spine extensor muscles (P < 0.05), while forward and sideways walking had no significant effect on these variables (P > 0.05). The results obtained from Bonferroni post-hoc test showed a significant difference between the strength of trunk extensor muscles and EMG of spinal cord extensor muscles in forward and backward water gait groups (P = 0.001, 0.006).Conclusions:According to the findings of this study, it seems that walking backward can be an effective therapeutic method for patients with chronic back pain.

Development of an Insect-Inspired Hexapod Robot Actuated by Soft Actuators

Insects are one of the most diverse group of animals on the planet and are almost ubiquitous. Their walking locomotion has inspired engineers and provided effective solutions for designing transport methods for legged robots. In this paper, we introduce a hexapod walking robot that mimics the design and walking motions of insects. The robot is characterized by small size, light weight, simple structure, and considerably fast walking speed. Three pairs of its legs are driven by three five-degrees-of-freedom (5DOF) soft actuators based on dielectric elastomer (DE) actuators which can provide up to five movements (including three translations and two rotations) within a compact structure. The robot imitates the crawling motion of an insect using the alternating tripod gait. The experiments show that the robot can achieve an average walking speed of 5.2 cm/s (approximately 21 body-lengths per minute) at 7 Hz of actuation frequency on flat rigid surfaces. Furthermore, the robot also demonstrates the omnidirectional capabilities of walking sideways and rotating its body direction, which enhance the potential of applying the proposed robot in practical uses.

Field Guides

In this article, Mike Pearson challenges what Guy Debord suggests is ‘the primary urban character’ of the dérive. Following a memorable encounter with a pair of European Nighjars, he reflects upon how birds might occasion, guide, lead and dramaturgically orchestrate drifting and upon choreographies of bird watching. How, in their quest, birds engender expectation and urgency, necessitating preparation – going equipped with specialist optical tools, clothing, footwear – and precipitating heightened senses of attention and concentration. How their appearance and encounter sets and punctuates the tempo and rhythm of the excursion. How this leads to adjustments: of timings – halting, lingering, waiting, rushing to follow; of ways of seeing – negotiating looking up and out simultaneously, getting one’s eye in, accustoming it to colour and movement in this terrain, oscillating between near and far, scanning, rapid shifting; of listening – cocking an ear, focusing direction. Above all, of posture, gait and locomotion: moving in slow motion, walking sideways, holding the body at odd angles, crouching, crawling, twitching. Conjuring improvised responses of concealment and revelation in relation to a landscape: of becoming attuned and absorbed – another feature of this place. How it prompts memories of similar occurrences here, of this place at different times, of these birds in other places … ‘Field Guides’ points of reference are J.A. Baker’s The Peregrine (1967) in which the author trails the raptor across the flat Essex marshes; Mark Cocker’s Crow Country (2012), the memoire of a ‘rook-following man’; John Berger’s essay ‘Field’ (1971) in which ‘Finches chasing each other from bush to bush’ might constitute a ‘first event’ – that fixes ones attention and that then leads you to apprehend further events within a field; and the hypotactic conflations of optic and haptic in John Clare’s poetry – ‘With every smell and sound and sight beguiled’ (‘The Village Boy’).

Probabilistic Context-Aware Step Length Estimation for Pedestrian Dead Reckoning

This paper introduces a weighted context-based step length estimation algorithm for pedestrian dead reckoning. Six pedestrian contexts are considered: stationary, walking, walking sideways, climbing and descending stairs, and running. Instead of computing the step length based on a single context, the step lengths computed for different contexts are weighted by the context probabilities. This provides more robust performance when the context is uncertain. The proposed step length estimation algorithm is part of a pedestrian dead reckoning system which includes the procedures of step detection and context classification. The step detection algorithm detects the step time boundaries using continuous wavelet transform analysis, while the context classification algorithm determines the pedestrian context probabilities using a relevance vector machine. In order to assess the performance of the pedestrian dead reckoning system, a data set of pedestrian activities and actions has been collected. Fifteen subjects have been equipped with a waist-belt smartphone and traveled along a predefined path. Acceleration, angular rate and magnetic field data were recorded. The results show that the traveled distance is more accurate using step lengths weighted by the context probabilities compared to using step lengths based on the highest probability context.

Predictive ability of functional tests for postural instability and gait difficulty in Parkinson's disease.

The objective of this study is to identify clinical determinants for postural instability and gait difficulty in persons with Parkinson's disease (PD). Ninety-one persons (68 males; 74.7%) with PD were studied. Their mean age was 68.73±8.74years. The average time since diagnosis was 7.69±5.23years. The average Hoehn and Yahr stage was 2.43±0.44. Age, gender, disease duration, disease severity and motor impairment were recorded. Participants were asked to perform timed clinical mobility tests that included a 5-step test, turns, forward walk, backward walk, and a sideways walk. The mobility tests were investigated for their contribution to predict the postural instability and gait difficulty (PIGD) score (falling, freezing, walking, gait and postural stability) of the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS). PIGD score was significantly correlated with age, disease duration, Hoehn and Yahr score, comorbidity, UPDRS motor score, gait speed of forward, backward and sideways walks, and time to turn. PIGD score was marginally significantly correlated with timed 5-step test. After controlling for age, disease duration, disease severity, comorbidity, and motor impairment, sideway gait speed (β=-0.335; p=0.024), timed 5-step test (β=-0.397; p=0.003) and time to turn (β=0.289; p=0.028) significantly predicted postural instability and gait difficulty. Walking sideways, 5-step test, and turning are significant predictors of PIGD score. These simple mobility tests can be quickly applied in clinical practice to determine postural instability and gait problems in persons with PD.

Simulating bi-directional pedestrian flow in a cellular automaton model considering the body-turning behavior

In the experiments of bi-directional pedestrian flow, it is often observed that pedestrians turn their bodies and change from walking straight to walking sideways, in order to mitigate or avoid the conflicts with opposite walking ones. When these conflicts disappear, pedestrians restore and walk straight again. In the turning states, the forward velocities of pedestrians are not affected. In order to simulate this body-turning behavior, we use a cellular automaton (CA) model named ITP model, which has been proposed before. But the occupied area of one pedestrian is set as 0.4 m∗0.2 m. After the introduction of new rules of turnings and restorations, the pedestrians become more intelligent and flexible during the lane formation process, and some improvements of the fundamental diagram of pedestrian flow can be found. The simulation results of two different scenarios under open boundary conditions are also presented, and compared with the experimental data. It is shown that the new model performs much better than the original model in various tests, which further confirms the validity of the new rules. We think this approach is one useful contribution to the pedestrian flow modeling.