Cardio-respiratory monitoring in archery using a smart textile based on flexible fiber bragg grating sensors

In precision sports, the control of breathing and heart rate is crucial to help the body to remain stable in the shooting position. To improve stability, archers try to adopt similar breathing patterns and to have a low heartbeat during each shot. We proposed an easy-to-use and unobtrusive smart textile (ST) which is able to detect chest wall excursions due to breathing and heart beating. The sensing part is based on two FBGs housed into a soft polymer matrix to optimize the adherence to the chest wall and the system robustness. The ST was assessed on volunteers to figure out its performance in the estimation of respiratory frequency (fR) and heart rate (HR). Then, the system was tested on two archers during four shooting sessions. This is the first study to monitor cardio-respiratory activity on archers during shooting. The good performance of the ST is supported by the low mean absolute percentage error for fR and HR estimation (≤1.97% and ≤5.74%, respectively), calculated with respect to reference signals (flow sensor for fR, photopletismography sensor for HR). Moreover, results showed the capability of the ST to estimate fR and HR during different phases of shooting action. The promising results motivate future investigations to speculate about the influence of fR and HR on archers’ performance

Smart Sensors for Healthcare and Medical Applications

This book focuses on new sensing technologies, measurement techniques, and their applications in medicine and healthcare. Specifically, the book briefly describes the potential of smart sensors in the aforementioned applications, collecting 24 articles selected and published in the Special Issue “Smart Sensors for Healthcare and Medical Applications”. We proposed this topic, being aware of the pivotal role that smart sensors can play in the improvement of healthcare services in both acute and chronic conditions as well as in prevention for a healthy life and active aging. The articles selected in this book cover a variety of topics related to the design, validation, and application of smart sensors to healthcare

Wearable Coaching System

Wearable Coaching System is a multi-sensor device for real-time training coaching. The system comprises of six modules which are shoulder, waist, a pair of wrist and a pair of ankle modules. It is compact, light, comfortable to wear and is suitable for any size of user. It system has five main embedded sensors: heart rate, three-axis acceleration, gyro, temperature and blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) sensor. It operates in streaming mode for real-time data processing using two telecommunication tools: Zigbee and Bluetooth and low energy interface for recording mode is using an internal flash memory. In this paper, a wearable coaching system is designed to help athlete or trainer to perform proper and efficient exercise suitable to one’s body needs. It measures the parameter of the body, analyze and provide feedback in a form of an advice. In order to improve the system, arm gesture mode performed by the wrist modules of the system is applied. This mode is to enable user to manage their exercising level to a more appropriate pace, suitable with their individual body by reproducing the feedback. In a supervised coaching training, percentage of heart rate threshold target is increasing, hence, producing a greater performance of training. It is proven in this paper, that wearable coaching system performs an accurate measurement in enhancing sports and coaching training, adding value to novel lifestyle exercising and health monitoring

A wearable system based on fiber Bragg grating for monitoring respiratory and heart activity of archers

This study focuses on the monitoring of respiratory and heart activities on archers. These activities are linked with performance in precision sports since they can compromise the postural stability. In particular, soft sensors based a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) embedded into a Dragon Skin 10 polymer brick (90 mm length, 24 mm width, 1 mm thick) have been proposed to instrument a wearable system. The movements of the chest wall due to respiratory and the cardiac activities are transmitted through two bands housing an FBG. The consequent change of the FBG output provides an indirect method to monitor respiratory and heart activities.The positions of the instrumented bands on the athlete have been optimized by processing biomechanical data recorded on four archers during the shooting phase and quiet breathing. Then, we investigated the capability of the system to monitor respiratory- and cardiac-induced movements of the chest wall. Tests were performed on two volunteers during different respiratory phases and the simulation of the shooting phase.The output of the two instrumented bands reflects the chest wall movement due to respiration and cardiac pumping (during apnea). These results can be considered the first step toward the analysis of the relationship between archer's performance and cardiorespiratory activity. Besides, the use of the proposed system may be beneficial for analyzing the influence of the mentioned physiological activities on the performance in precision sports athletes

Maritime expressions:a corpus based exploration of maritime metaphors

This study uses a purpose-built corpus to explore the linguistic legacy of Britain’s maritime history found in the form of hundreds of specialised ‘Maritime Expressions’ (MEs), such as TAKEN ABACK, ANCHOR and ALOOF, that permeate modern English. Selecting just those expressions commencing with ’A’, it analyses 61 MEs in detail and describes the processes by which these technical expressions, from a highly specialised occupational discourse community, have made their way into modern English. The Maritime Text Corpus (MTC) comprises 8.8 million words, encompassing a range of text types and registers, selected to provide a cross-section of ‘maritime’ writing. It is analysed using WordSmith analytical software (Scott, 2010), with the 100 million-word British National Corpus (BNC) as a reference corpus. Using the MTC, a list of keywords of specific salience within the maritime discourse has been compiled and, using frequency data, concordances and collocations, these MEs are described in detail and their use and form in the MTC and the BNC is compared. The study examines the transformation from ME to figurative use in the general discourse, in terms of form and metaphoricity. MEs are classified according to their metaphorical strength and their transference from maritime usage into new registers and domains such as those of business, politics, sports and reportage etc. A revised model of metaphoricity is developed and a new category of figurative expression, the ‘resonator’, is proposed. Additionally, developing the work of Lakov and Johnson, Kovesces and others on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), a number of Maritime Conceptual Metaphors are identified and their cultural significance is discussed