The Walking Brain: factors influencing human gait

Human walking is a standardized, repeatable and rhythmic locomotor act, with biomechanical patterns reported as roughly common to all healthy individuals. However, some gait patterns could be affected by cognitive, social and cultural factors. This mini-review aims at investigating top-down related differences in walking healthy patterns due to the above factors. The reviewed literature reported that socio-economic factors are at the basis of differences in pedestrian walking speed, related to the pace of life: faster speed was found in industrialized countries than in developing ones. Furthermore, it was suggested that the ancient division between men and women in hunters and gatherers, respectively, could be at the basis of gender visual differences and, in turn, in upper body movements during walking, with women walking with a more stable head. Interestingly, changes in gait speed did not affect cortical resources needed for spatial cognition, whereas a cognitive task may affect the gait speed. The most reliable parameters, poorly affected by psycho-social factors, resulted the symmetry of limb movements and the ratio between stance and swing duration. The latter was found close to the irrational number called golden ratio, providing a fractal structure to human gait cycle. Both these parameters are at the basis of the harmony of human walking, a feature maintained also in presence of top-down driven gait modifications

A Dance to the Music of Time: Aesthetically-Relevant Changes in Body Posture in Performing Art

In performing arts, body postures are both means for expressing an artist's intentions, and also artistic objects, appealing to the audience. The postures of classical ballet obey the body's biomechanical limits, but also follow strict rules established by tradition. This combination offers a perfect milieu for assessing scientifically how the execution of this particular artistic activity has changed over time, and evaluating what factors may induce such changes. We quantified angles between body segments in archive material showing dancers from a leading company over a 60-year period. The data showed that body positions supposedly fixed by codified choreography were in fact implemented by very different elevation angles, according to the year of ballet production. Progressive changes lead to increasingly vertical positions of the dancer's body over the period studied. Experimental data showed that these change reflected aesthetic choices of naïve modern observers. Even when reduced to stick figures and unrecognisable shapes, the more vertical postures drawn from later productions were systematically preferred to less vertical postures from earlier productions. This gradual change within a conservative art form provides scientific evidence that aesthetic change may arise from continuous interaction between artistic tradition, individual artists' creativity, and a wider environmental context. This context may include social aesthetic pressure from audiences

Evaluation of cervical posture improvement of children with cerebral palsy after physical therapy based on head movements and serious games

Background: This paper presents the preliminary results of a novel rehabilitation therapy for cervical and trunk control of children with cerebral palsy (CP) based on serious videogames and physical exercise. Materials: The therapy is based on the use of the ENLAZA Interface, a head mouse based on inertial technology that will be used to control a set of serious videogames with movements of the head. Methods: Ten users with CP participated in the study. Whereas the control group (n=5) followed traditional therapies, the experimental group (n=5) complemented these therapies with a series of ten sessions of gaming with ENLAZA to exercise cervical flexion-extensions, rotations and inclinations in a controlled, engaging environment. Results: The ten work sessions yielded improvements in head and trunk control that were higher in the experimental group for Visual Analogue Scale, Goal Attainment Scaling and Trunk Control Measurement Scale (TCMS). Significant differences (27% vs. 2% of percentage improvement) were found between the experimental and control groups for TCMS (p<0.05). The kinematic assessment shows that there were some improvements in the active and the passive range of motion. However, no significant differences were found pre- and post-intervention. Conclusions:Physical therapy that combines serious games with traditional rehabilitation could allow children with CP to achieve larger function improvements in the trunk and cervical regions. However, given the limited scope of this trial (n=10) additional studies are needed to corroborate this hypothesis

Divergent definitions in the visibility strategy of the LGTB movement in Cordova

El presente artículo explora la visibilidad como problema, objetivo y estrategia del activismo LGTB. Enfocado en la reciente apropiación de la Marcha del Orgullo como práctica política por parte de un sector del movimiento LGTB cordobés, se indaga cómo los activistas disputan modos legítimos de articular una estrategia de visibilidad. Signada por el riesgo de su posible mercantilización y el vaciamiento político, la marcha constituyó no obstante el escenario de nuevas y confrontadas definiciones del status ciudadano de la diversidad sexo-genérica. A partir de observaciones de campo y entrevistas a activistas se interrogó cómo la trayectoria en la militancia, las subjetividades exo-genéricas en juego, el acceso diferencial a recursos y la radicalidad relativa de sus plataformas constituyeron factores determinantes en la definición de la estrategia de visibilidad en términos ‘festivos’ o ‘combativos’.This article explores visibility as a problem, an objective and a strategy of LGTB activism. Focusing on the recent appropriation of the Pride March as a political practice on the part of one sector of the LGTB Cordova movement, the author examines how activists dispute legitimate modes of articulating a visibility strategy. Marked by the risk of commercialization and an emptying of political content, the march nevertheless constitutes a stage for new and opposing definitions of the citizen status of sexual-gender diversity. Based on field observations and interviews with activists, the author interrogates how the trajectory in militancy, the sexualgender subjectivities at play, differential access to resources and the relatively radical character of their platforms constitute determining factors in the definition of the visibility strategy in ‘festive’ or ‘combative’ terms

Effects of Visual Deprivation on Gait Dynamic Stability

Vision can improve bipedal upright stability during standing and affect spatiotemporal parameters during walking. However, little is known about the effects of visual deprivation on gait dynamic stability. We have tested 28 subjects during walking under two different visual conditions, full vision (FV) and no vision (NV), measuring their upper body accelerations. Lower accelerations were found in NV for the reduced walking speed. However, the normalized accelerations were higher in the NV than in the FV condition, both in anteroposterior (1.05 ± 0.21 versus 0.88 ± 0.16, P = 0.001) and laterolateral (0.99 ± 0.26 versus 0.78 ± 0.19, P < 0.001) directions. Vision also affected the gait anteroposterior harmony (P = 0.026) and, interacting with the environment, also the latero-lateral one (P = 0.017). Directly (as main factor of the ANOVA) or indirectly (by means of significant interactions with other factors), vision affected all the measured parameters. In conclusion, participants showed an environment-dependent reduction of upper body stability and harmony when deprived by visual feedback

Competencia y crecimiento en la era digital : Reseña crítica de Capitalismo de Plataformas de Nick Srnicek

La pregunta central del libro, enunciada en términos relativamente simples, requeridos de elaboración y sofisticación posterior, aparece ya en la introducción: ¿Qué efectos tiene la economía digital en el capitalismo? (p. 11). Antes de arrojar una primera mirada a su respuesta hay que destacar una idea que vertebra todo su análisis y que nos permite adquirir un punto de vista específico desde el cual mirar las empresas de tecnología: el punto de vista privilegiado para su estudio es que son actores económicos antes que culturales o políticos. Por lo tanto hay que estudiarlos como tales: observar su desempeño dentro del modo capitalista de producción (pp. 10-11).Facultad de Trabajo Socia

APROXIMACIONES A LA SUBJETIVACIÓN SEXO-GENÉRICA EN LA PROFESIÓN DOCENTE. ESTUDIO COMPARATIVO DE TRES CURSOS DE FORMACIÓN DOCENTE EN EDUCACIÓN SEXUAL EN CÓRDOBA

Este artículo presenta resultados de una investigación que abordó el campo de la formación continua de docentes en educación sexual posterior a la ley 26.150, Programa de Educación Sexual Integral (PESI). El objetivo primordial consiste en mapear el tipo de identidades socio-sexuales privilegiadas y aquellas deslegitimadas por los contenidos curriculares de tres cursos de formación docente en Educación Sexual dictados en la ciudad de Córdoba durante el período 2007-2008. La generación y el análisis de datos permiten en este estudio teorizar la práctica de la formación de docentes como el escenario de un proceso transformativo de identidades socio-sexuales – vehiculizadas en los contenidos curriculares – en subjetividades sexo-genérico-profesionales. Este proceso de subjetivación puede consolidar las formas consensuadas de legitimación profesional o cuestionarlas para reinventar la profesión y sus marcas sexuales y genéricas. El carácter del estudio es pues comparativo y los métodos utilizados para la generación de datos fueron la observación participante y el análisis de contenido del material impreso