THE INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENT STRIKE PAITERNS ON ENERGY CONTIBUTION DURING RUNNING

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the differences of joint power and work between forefoot strike (FFS) and rear-foot strike (RFS) during the stance phase of running. Methods: A 10-camera Vicon system and two force plates were used to collect the kinematics and kinetics data of 15 healthy male triathletes with different foot strike strategies during running. Results: The joint power and positive work at hip and ankle were increased in FFS during the stance phase. FFS also showed decreased knee negative work. Conclusion: Running with FFS would consume more energy than running with RFS at the same speed. The lack of ankle pint shock absorption in RFS might cause higher injury risk in knee

Perinatal Gene-Gene and Gene-Environment Interactions on IgE Production and Asthma Development

Atopic asthma is a complex disease associated with IgE-mediated immune reactions. Numerous genome-wide studies identified more than 100 genes in 22 chromosomes associated with atopic asthma, and different genetic backgrounds in different environments could modulate susceptibility to atopic asthma. Current knowledge emphasizes the effect of tobacco smoke on the development of childhood asthma. This suggests that asthma, although heritable, is significantly affected by gene-gene and gene-environment interactions. Evidence has recently shown that molecular mechanism of a complex disease may be limited to not only DNA sequence differences, but also gene-environmental interactions for epigenetic difference. This paper reviews and summarizes how gene-gene and gene-environment interactions affect IgE production and the development of atopic asthma in prenatal and childhood stages. Based on the mechanisms responsible for perinatal gene-environment interactions on IgE production and development of asthma, we formulate several potential strategies to prevent the development of asthma in the perinatal stage

MECHANISM OF LANDING STRATERGY DURING STEP AEROBICS WITH DIFFERENT BENCH HEIGHTS AND LOADS

The purpose of this study was to investigate effects of different heights (6inch, 8inch, 10inch) and external loads (0% BW, 10% BW, 15% BW) on lower extremity during step aerobics. Ten college physical education students (age: 23.8 ± 2.1 years, height: 173.5 ± 6.1 cm, weight: 68.5 ± 8.0 kg) participated in this study. A Mega high-speed camera (100 Hz) and an ATMI force plate (1000Hz) were used to record kinematic and kinetic data respectively during step aerobics. Increased vertical ground reaction force, ankle movement, and decreased leg stiffness and ankle joint stiffness were found as the bench height increased to 10 inches which were considered to a high loading rates and shock to the lower extremity, especially at ankle joint. Therefore, people should avoid doing step aerobics at 10-inch bench height for a long time to protect ankle joint and soft tissue from injury

THE INFLUENCE OF TAI-CHI EXERCISE ON DYNAMICS OF LOWER EXTREMITY FOR THE ELDERLY DURING SIT-TO-STAND

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of Tai Chi exercise on sit-tostand in the elderly. Ten healthy female elders (normal group) and nine healthy Tai-Chi female practitioner (Tai-Chi group) participated in this study. The results indicated: (1) During the forward flexion phase, normal group showed significantly greater hip flexion angle and moment than Tai-Chi group (

KINETIC DIFFERENCES IN LOWER EXTREMITY BETWEEN BASEBALL PITCHING FROM PITCHER’S MOUND AND FLAT-GROUND

The purpose of this study was to investigate the kinetic differences in lower extremity between pitching from a mound and flat-ground. A motion capture system and two force plates were used simultaneously to collect the dynamic data of 8 baseball male pitchers. The results revealed that pitching from the mound generated higher propulsive force at the trailing leg as well as greater braking force and vertical ground reaction force at the lead leg (p< .05). The trailing leg in the mound condition generated greater knee posterior joint force while the lead leg had greater axial joint force at ankle and knee, as well as greater extension moment at ankle, knee and hip (p< .05). It was concluded that pitching from the mound generated higher ground reaction force, which resulted in higher joint forces and moments and thus might increase stresses at lower extremity

Long-term RFID SLAM using Short-Range Sparse Tags

While on the path forward to the long-term or lifelong robotics, one of the most important capabilities is to have a reliable localization and mapping module. Data association and loop detection play critical roles in the localization and mapping problem. By utilizing the radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, these problems can be solved using the extended Kalman filter (EKF) based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) with the tag information. But one of the critical barriers to the long-term SLAM is the overconfidence issue. In this paper, we focus on solving the overconfidence issue, which is introduced by the linearization errors. An Unit Circle Representation (UCR) is proposed to diminish the error in the prediction stage and a Correlation Coefficient Preserved Inflation (CCPI) is developed to recover the overconfidence issue in the update stage. Based on only odometry and sparse short-range RFID data, the proposed method is capable to compensate the linearization errors in both simulation and real experiments

THE EFFECT OF COUNTER MOVEMENT JUMP PERFORMANCE IN MIDDLEAGED ELDERLY PRACTICING TAI-CHI EXERCISE

The purpose of this study was to investigate biomechanical effects of Tal-Chi exercise on the lower-extremity in middle-aged elders during counter-movement jump. Twelve middle-aged elders with regular Tai Chi exercise experience and twelve healthy middle-aged elders participated in this study. Ten Vicon Motion System cameras, two Kistler force plates were used simultaneously to capture the kinematic and dynamlc parameters of standing vertical jumps. Independent samples &test was performed for statistical analysis ( u = .05 ). Since the jump height of Tai Chi group was significantly higher ( p c .05 ). It showed that practicing Tai Chi exercise could effectively slow down the degeneration of the moment and power at the hip Joint. Therefore, middle-aged elders were recommended to engage in long-term Tai Chi exercise

EvIcon: Designing High-Usability Icon with Human-in-the-loop Exploration and IconCLIP

Interface icons are prevalent in various digital applications. Due to limited time and budgets, many designers rely on informal evaluation, which often results in poor usability icons. In this paper, we propose a unique human-in-the-loop framework that allows our target users, i.e., novice and professional UI designers, to improve the usability of interface icons efficiently. We formulate several usability criteria into a perceptual usability function and enable users to iteratively revise an icon set with an interactive design tool, EvIcon. We take a large-scale pre-trained joint image-text embedding (CLIP) and fine-tune it to embed icon visuals with icon tags in the same embedding space (IconCLIP). During the revision process, our design tool provides two types of instant perceptual usability feedback. First, we provide perceptual usability feedback modeled by deep learning models trained on IconCLIP embeddings and crowdsourced perceptual ratings. Second, we use the embedding space of IconCLIP to assist users in improving icons' visual distinguishability among icons within the user-prepared icon set. To provide the perceptual prediction, we compiled IconCEPT10K, the first large-scale dataset of perceptual usability ratings over $10,000$ interface icons, by conducting a crowdsourcing study. We demonstrated that our framework could benefit UI designers' interface icon revision process with a wide range of professional experience. Moreover, the interface icons designed using our framework achieved better semantic distance and familiarity, verified by an additional online user study

Anti-inflammatory and anti-infectious effects of Evodia rutaecarpa (Wuzhuyu) and its major bioactive components

This article reviews the anti-inflammatory relative and anti-infectious effects of Evodia rutaecarpa and its major bioactive components and the involvement of the nitric oxide synthases, cyclooxygenase, NADPH oxidase, nuclear factor kappa B, hypoxia-inducible factor 1 alpha, reactive oxygen species, prostaglandins, tumor necrosis factor, LIGHT, amyloid protein and orexigenic neuropeptides. Their potential applications for the treatment of endotoxaemia, obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and their uses as cardiovascular and gastrointestinal protective agents, analgesics, anti-oxidant, anti-atherosclerosis agents, dermatological agents and anti-infectious agents are highlighted. Stimulation of calcitonin gene-related peptide release may partially explain the analgesic, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal protective, anti-obese activities of Evodia rutaecarpa and its major bioactive components