Kinesiology Commons^™

Thrust Production And Chordal Flexion Of The Flukes Of Bottlenose Dolphins Performing Tail Stands At Different Efforts, David Kramer, Maura J. Sheehan, Frank E. Fish

Biology Faculty Publications

Dolphins have become famous for their ability to perform a wide variety of athletic and acrobatic behaviors including high-speed swimming, maneuverability, porpoising and tail stands. Tail stands are a behavior where part of the body is held vertically above the water's surface, achieved through thrust produced by horizontal tail fluke oscillations. Strong, efficient propulsors are needed to generate the force required to support the dolphin's body weight, exhibiting chordwise and spanwise flexibility throughout the stroke cycle. To determine how thrust production, fluke flexibility and tail stroke kinematics vary with effort, six adult bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) were tested at three …

Compliance And Roughness In Relation To Gecko Locomotion, Brooklynn Campbell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Geckos move efficiently through a variety of substrates, from swaying branches to wooden fences to the sides of structures. Previous studies have studied locomotion and adhesion on manmade and rough substrates; however, the work is limited when discussing locomotion and adhesion as a relationship of compliance and roughness. Ease of movement was quantified by speed, under the assumption that the faster a gecko moves, the easier it is for the gecko to cross the substrate. Gehyra oceanica geckos from Moorea, French Polynesia were tested on substrates varying in compliance and roughness with four different treatments in total. Compliance, roughness, and …

Multifractality In Stride-To-Stride Variations Reveals That Walking Involves More Movement Tuning And Adjusting Than Running, Taylor J. Wilson, Madhur Mangalam, Nicholas Stergiou, Aaron Likens

Journal Articles

Introduction: The seemingly periodic human gait exhibits stride-to-stride variations as it adapts to the changing task constraints. The optimal movement variability hypothesis (OMVH) states that healthy stride-to-stride variations exhibit “fractality”—a specific temporal structure in consecutive strides that are ordered, stable but also variable, and adaptable. Previous research has primarily focused on a single fractality measure, “monofractality.” However, this measure can vary across time; strideto-stride variations can show “multifractality.” Greater multifractality in stride-tostride variations would highlight the ability to tune and adjust movements more.

Methods: We investigated monofractality and multifractality in a cohort of eight healthy adults during self-paced walking and …

Compensating For Effects Of Autotomy On Locomotion In Stink Bugs (Halyomorpha Halys), Lilian C. Jubb

Longwood Senior Thesis Proposal

Autotomy is the voluntary release of an appendage, typically to avoid predation or entrapment. Autonomy of a single leg can have minimal effects on locomotion in arthropods with more than six legs. Hexapods, however, use a double-tripod gait which is completely disrupted with the loss of a single leg, thus locomotor performance should be greatly reduced leading to lower survival. Autotomy is so costly to locomotion that some insects regenerate a lost limb in a subsequent molt leading to reduced investment in other important functions (e.g. reproduction). Autotomy persists in adult hexapods with no opportunity for regeneration, which suggests some …

Gaze During Turning In Older Adults, Kalina Mavrov

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

To navigate complex environments, our gaze needs to attenuate to locomotor tasks, such as walking and turning. Shifting gaze (i.e., rotation of the eyes and head), is important when moving through different environments. The aim of this study was to compare gaze anticipation during clinical tests and complex real-world locomotion. I hypothesized that older adults would shift their gaze in a new heading direction in anticipation of turns. I further predicted increased gaze anticipation in tasks that have a high demand for spatial orientation. Participants were asked to complete clinical tasks consisting of a 2-minute walk, figure-8, and 360-turning in …

Effects Of Aging On Patellofemoral Joint Stress During Stair Negotiation On Challenging Surfaces, Nicholas Lynn Hunt

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Patellofemoral pain is an incessant lower limb musculoskeletal disorder that may be underreported in older adults. During common locomotor activities, such as when negotiating stairs, older adults (over the age of 65 years) adopt knee biomechanics reported to increase patellofemoral pain. Negotiating stairs with a challenging surface, such as uneven or slick, may place greater demand on the knee and further exacerbate joint biomechanics related to PFJ stress. Yet, it is unknown if older adults exhibit increases in patellofemoral joint (PFJ) stress when negotiating stairs with challenging surfaces. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect …

How Capuchin Monkeys Use Their Semi-Prehensile Tails, Madhur Mangalam, Callum F. Ross, Patricia Izar, Elisabetta Visalberghi, Dorothy M. Fragaszy

Journal Articles

Among primates, prehensile/semi-prehensile tails have evolved independently in the families Atelidae and Cebidae of the infraorder Platyrrhini (Neotropical monkeys). They facilitate maintaining stability during locomotion on thin, flexible branches and while reaching for food on challenging substrates. How a prehensile/semi-prehensile tail is coordinated with the hind limbs to facilitate controlled, flexible adoption of postures remains unknown. In an experimental set-up in the wild, we induced capuchin monkeys to adopt a tail-assisted, head-down tripodal posture to reach for food, documenting from slow-motion video recordings (120 fps) both qualitative changes in the monkeys’ positional behaviour – the relative orientation of their limbs …

These Fish Were Made For Walking: Morphology And Walking Kinematics In Balitorid Loaches, Callie Hendricks Crawford

Dissertations

Terrestrial excursions have been observed in multiple lineages of marine and freshwater fishes. These ventures into the terrestrial environment may be used when fish are searching out new habitat during drought, escaping predation, laying eggs, or seeking food sources. The physiological demands for life under water and on land are vastly different and require different functional adaptations. Fish with terrestrial excursions must be capable of dealing with the stresses of both aquatic and terrestrial environments for varying periods of time. To deal with these stresses, amphibious fishes exhibit many morphological and behavioral adaptations. These adaptations have led to a range …

The Biomechanical Energetics Of Terrestrial Locomotion In California Sea Lions (Zalophus Californianus): Efficiency Of Quadrupedal Galloping, Sarah Kerr

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Pinnipedia, an order of semi-aquatic marine mammals, adapted a body design that allows for efficient aquatic locomotion but limited terrestrial locomotion. Phocids (true seals) have reduced forelimbs and are unable to bring their hindlimbs beneath them during terrestrial locomotion. Otariids, like the California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), have enlarged forelimbs and can bring their hindlimbs under the body to locomote quadrupedally on land. Due to these differences, phocids are expected to move on land with greater energetic costs compared to otariids. The mechanical costs of transport and power outputs of terrestrial locomotion were compared between the California sea …

The Effects Of Turn Amplitude And Spatial Frequency On The Energetic Cost Of Running, Adam B. Grimmitt

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Compared to road running, those who run off-road face many unique challenges that impact their running mechanics and energetics. Current literature fails to address how the turns encountered on off-road paths might influence running performance. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the effects of turn angle and frequency on the energetic cost of running. Twelve young adult runners (21±3 years) who run ≥ 30 miles/week and who can run < 22 min for 5 kilometers participated in this study. All subject performed four trials: one straight path trial and three turning paths trials with combined spatial frequencies (ξ- cycles per meter) and amplitudes (meters) of 0.083SF:4AMP, 0.167SF:4AMP, and 0.167SF:2AMP, respectively. Using breath by breath portable gas analysis, we measured V̇O2 and V̇CO2 in the last 2 minutes of each 6-minute trial to determine metabolic power (Watt/kg). Statistical analysis utilized a repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and a post-hoc paired-sampled T-test to evaluate differences in energetic costs between paths. Compared to a virtually straight path, runners on average consumed 14% and 27% more metabolic energy on a path with turns of 0.167:2 (p=.002) and 0.167:4 (p

Gait Complexity Is Acutely Restored In Older Adults When Walking To A Fractal-Like Visual Stimulus, Joao R. Vaz, Brian Knarr, Nicholas Stergiou

Journal Articles

Typically, gait rehabilitation uses an invariant stimulus paradigm to improve gait related deficiencies. However, this approach may not be optimal as it does not incorporate gait complexity, or in more precise words, the variable fractal-like nature found in the gait fluctuations commonly observed in healthy populations. Aging which also affects gait complexity, resulting in a loss of adaptability to the surrounding environment, could benefit from gait rehabilitation that incorporates a variable fractal-like stimulus paradigm. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effect of a variable fractal-like visual stimulus on the stride-to-stride fluctuations of older adults during overground walking. Additionally, …

To Walk Or To Run – A Question Of Movement Attractor Stability, Peter C. Raffalt, Jenny A. Kent, Shane R. Wurdeman, Nicholas Stergiou

Journal Articles

During locomotion, humans change gait mode between walking and running as locomotion speed is either increased or decreased. Dynamical systems theory predicts that the self-organization of coordinated motor behaviors dictates the transition from one distinct stable attractor behavior to another distinct attractor behavior (e.g. walk to run or vice versa) as the speed is changed. To evaluate this prediction, the present study investigated the attractor stability of walking and running across a range of speeds evoking both self-selected gait mode and non-self-selected gait mode. Eleven subjects completed treadmill walking for 3 min at 0.89, 1.12, 1.34, 1.56, 1.79, 2.01, 2.24 …

Scaling Of Swimming Performance In Baleen Whales, William T. Gough, Paolo S. Segre, K. C. Bierlich, David E. Cade, Jean Potvin, Frank E. Fish, Julian Dale, Jacopo Di Clemente, Ari S. Friedlaender, David W. Johnston, Shirel R. Kahane-Rapport, John Kennedy, John H. Long, Machiel Oudejans, Gwenith Penry, Matthew S. Savoca, Malene Simon, Simone K. A. Videsen, Fleur Visser, David N. Wiley, Jeremy O. Goldbogen

Biology Faculty Publications

The scale dependence of locomotor factors has long been studied in comparative biomechanics, but remains poorly understood for animals at the upper extremes of body size. Rorqual baleen whales include the largest animals, but we lack basic kinematic data about their movements and behavior below the ocean surface. Here, we combined morphometrics from aerial drone photogrammetry, whale-borne inertial sensing tag data and hydrodynamic modeling to study the locomotion of five rorqual species. We quantified changes in tail oscillatory frequency and cruising speed for individual whales spanning a threefold variation in body length, corresponding to an order of magnitude variation in …

Ankle And Midtarsal Joint Quasi-Stiffness During Walking With Added Mass, Andrew M. Kern, Nikolaos Papachatzis, Jeffrey M. Patterson, Dustin A. Bruening, Kota Z. Takahashi

Journal Articles

Examination of how the ankle and midtarsal joints modulate stiffness in response to increased force demand will aid understanding of overall limb function and inform the development of bio-inspired assistive and robotic devices. The purpose of this study is to identify how ankle and midtarsal joint quasi-stiffness are affected by added body mass during over-ground walking. Healthy participants walked barefoot over-ground at 1.25 m/s wearing a weighted vest with 0%, 15% and 30% additional body mass. The effect of added mass was investigated on ankle and midtarsal joint range of motion (ROM), peak moment and quasi-stiffness. Joint quasi-stiffness was broken …

Selection Procedures For The Largest Lyapunov Exponent In Gait Biomechanics, Peter C. Raffalt, Jenny A. Kent, Shane R. Wurdeman, Nicholas Stergiou

Journal Articles

The present study was aimed at investigating the effectiveness of the Wolf et al. (LyE_W) and Rosenstein et al. largest Lyapunov Exponent (LyE_R) algorithms to differentiate data sets with distinctly different temporal structures. The three-dimensional displacement of the sacrum was recorded from healthy subjects during walking and running at two speeds; one low speed close to the preferred walking speed and one high speed close to the preferred running speed. LyE_R and LyE_W were calculated using four different time series normalization procedures. The performance of the algorithms were evaluated based on their ability to return relative low values for slow …

The Effects Of Ankle Stiffness On Mechanics And Energetics Of Walking With Added Loads: A Prosthetic Emulator Study, Erica Hedrick, Philippe Malcolm, Jason M. Wilken, Kota Z. Takahashi

Journal Articles

Background: The human ankle joint has an influential role in the regulation of the mechanics and energetics of gait. The human ankle can modulate its joint ‘quasi-stiffness’ (ratio of plantarflexion moment to dorsiflexion displacement) in response to various locomotor tasks (e.g., load carriage). However, the direct effect of ankle stiffness on metabolic energy cost during various tasks is not fully understood. The purpose of this study was to determine how net metabolic energy cost was affected by ankle stiffness while walking under different force demands (i.e., with and without additional load).
Methods: Individuals simulated an amputation by using …

Biomimetic Design And Construction Of A Bipedal Walking Robot, Alexander Gabriel Steele

Dissertations and Theses

Human balance and locomotion control is highly complex and not well understood. To understand how the nervous system controls balance and locomotion works, we test how the body responds to controlled perturbations, the results are analyzed, and control models are developed. However, to recreate this system of control there is a need for a robot with human-like kinematics. Unfortunately, such a robotic testbed does not exist despite the numerous applications such a design would have in mobile robotics, healthcare, and prosthetics.

This thesis presents a robotic testbed model of human lower legs. By using MRI and CT scans, I designed …

Gait Stability Has Phase-Dependent Dual-Task Costs In Parkinson’S Disease, Peter C. Fino, Martina Mancini, Carolin Curtze, John G. Nutt, Fay B. Horak

Journal Articles

Dual-task (DT) paradigms have been used in gait research to assess the automaticity of locomotion, particularly in people with Parkinson’s disease (PD). In people with PD, reliance on cortical control during walking leads to greater interference between cognitive and locomotor tasks. Yet, recent studies have suggested that even healthy gait requires cognitive control, and that these cognitive contributions occur at specific phases of the gait cycle. Here, we examined whether changes in gait stability, elicited by simultaneous cognitive DTs, were specific to certain phases of the gait cycle in people with PD. Phase-dependent local dynamic stability (LDS) was calculated for …

The Vestibular Contribution To Balance Control In Older Adults During Locomotion And Stair Negotiation, Megan Elwood

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Background: Stability is known to decrease as we age, but currently we know very little about how the body's balance system, the vestibular system, contributes to balance control in older adults, particularly while walking and climbing stairs. The purpose of this study was to take the first step in understanding vestibular contribution to balance control during locomotion and stair negotiation, and how this changes with age.

Methods: Ten young adults and six older adults ascended and descended a nine-step staircase 78 times and walked on a treadmill for 10 minutes to complete a total of 300 complete steps in …

Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Walk With Altered Step Time And Step Width Variability As Compared With Healthy Control Subjects, Jennifer M. Yentes, Stephen I. Rennard, Kendra K. Schmid, Daniel Blanke, Nikolaos Stergiou

Journal Articles

Rationale: Compared with control subjects, patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have an increased incidence of falls and demonstrate balance deficits and alterations in mediolateral trunk acceleration while walking. Measures of gait variability have been implicated as indicators of fall risk, fear of falling, and future falls.

Objectives: To investigate whether alterations in gait variability are found in patients with COPD as compared with healthy control subjects.

Methods: Twenty patients with COPD (16 males; mean age, 63.6 ± 9.7 yr; FEV1/FVC, 0.52 ± 0.12) and 20 control subjects (9 males; mean age, 62.5 ± 8.2 yr) walked for 3 …

Hallux Valgus Surgery Affects Kinematic Parameters During Gait, Jitka Klugarova, Miroslav Janura, Zdenek Svoboda, Zdenek Sos, Nicholas Stergiou, Miloslav Klugar

Journal Articles

Background

The aim of our study was to compare spatiotemporal parameters and lower limb and pelvis kinematics during the walking in patients with hallux valgus before and after surgery and in relation to a control group.

Methods

Seventeen females with hallux valgus, who underwent first metatarsal osteotomy, constituted our experimental group. The control group consisted of thirteen females. Kinematic data during walking were obtained using the Vicon MX system.

Findings

Our results showed that hallux valgus before surgery affects spatiotemporal parameters and lower limb and pelvis kinematics during walking. Hallux valgus surgery further increased the differences that were present before …

Turning Performance In Squid And Cuttlefish: Unique Dual-Mode, Muscular Hydrostatic Systems, Rachel A. Jastrebsky, Ian K. Bartol, Paul S. Krueger

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Although steady swimming has received considerable attention in prior studies, unsteady swimming movements represent a larger portion of many aquatic animals' locomotive repertoire and have not been examined extensively. Squids and cuttlefishes are cephalopods with unique muscular hydrostat-driven, dual-mode propulsive systems involving paired fins and a pulsed jet. These animals exhibit a wide range of swimming behavior, but turning performance has not been examined quantitatively. Brief squid, Lolliguncula brevis, and dwarf cuttlefish, Sepia bandensis, were filmed during turns using high-speed cameras. Kinematic features were tracked, including the length-specific radius of the turn (R/L), a measure of maneuverability, and …

Failures In Adaptive Locomotion In Healthy Young Adults, Michel J. H. Heijnen

Open Access Dissertations

Young adults fall most frequently when walking, and trips account for 25% of these falls (Heijnen & Rietdyk, 2016). Common approaches to understanding tripping include the examination of behavior when a stationary obstacle is crossed successfully, or to deliberately trip the participant with a covert obstacle. However, these approaches do not establish the underlying cause of failure; examining inadvertent failures does, as this occurs most often in the field (Heijnen & Rietdyk, 2016). In order to identify the behavior that results in obstacle contact, this dissertation examined gait characteristics during inadvertent failures and manipulated the sensory information available to guide …

Gait Mechanics In Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Jenna M. Yentes, Kendra K. Schmid, Daniel Blanke, Debra J. Romberger, Stephen I. Rennard, Nikolaos Stergiou

Journal Articles

Background

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterized by the frequent association of disease outside the lung. The objective of this study was to determine the presence of biomechanical gait abnormalities in COPD patients compared to healthy controls while well rested and without rest.

Methods

Patients with COPD (N = 17) and aged-matched, healthy controls (N = 21) walked at their self-selected pace down a 10-meter walkway while biomechanical gait variables were collected. A one-minute rest was given between each of the five collected trials to prevent tiredness (REST condition). Patients with COPD then walked at a self-selected pace on …

Sex Differences In Whole Body Gait Kinematics At Preferred Speeds, Dustin A. Bruening, R. Frimenko, C. Goodyear, A. Fullenkamp

Faculty Publications

Studies on human perception have identified pelvis and torso motion as key discriminators between male and female gaits. However, while most observers would advocate that men and women walk differently, consistent findings and explanations of sex differences in gait kinematics across modern empirical studies are rare. In the present study we evaluated sex differences in whole body gait kinematics from a large sample of subjects (55 men, 36 women) walking at self selected speeds. We analyzed the data through comparisons of discrete metrics and whole curve analyses. Results showed that in the frontal plane, women walked with greater pelvic obliquity …

Gait Variablility Is Altered In Older Adults When Listening To Auditory Stimuli With Differing Temporal Structures, Jeffrey P. Kaipust, Denise Mcgrath, Mukul Mukherjee, Nikolaos Stergiou

Journal Articles

Gait variability in the context of a deterministic dynamical system may be quantified using nonlinear time series analyses that characterize the complexity of the system. Pathological gait exhibits altered gait variability. It can be either too periodic and predictable, or too random and disordered, as it is the case with aging. While gait therapies often focus on restoration of linear measures such as gait speed or stride length, we propose that the goal of gait therapy should be to restore optimal gait variability, which exhibits chaotic fluctuations and is the balance between predictability and complexity. In this context, our purpose …

Multiple Sclerosis Alters The Mechanical Work Performed On The Body's Center Of Mass During Gait, Shane R. Wurdeman, Jessie M. Huisinga, Mary Filipi, Nikolaos Stergiou

Journal Articles

Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) have less-coordinated movements of the center of mass resulting in greater mechanical work. The purpose of this study was to quantify the work performed on the body’s center of mass by patients with MS. It was hypothesized that patients with MS would perform greater negative work during initial double support and less positive work in terminal double support. Results revealed that patients with MS perform less negative work in single support and early terminal double support and less positive work in the terminal double support period. However, summed over the entire stance phase, patients with …

Temporal Structure Of Variability Reveals Similar Control Mechanisms During Lateral Stepping And Forward Walking, Shane R. Wurdeman, Nikolaos Stergiou

Journal Articles

Previous research exploring a lateral stepping gait utilized amount of variability (i.e. coefficient of variation) in the medial-lateral (ML) and anterior-posterior (AP) direction to propose that the central nervous system’s active control over gait in any direction is dependent on the direction of progression. This study sought to further explore this notion through the study of the temporal structure of variability which is reflective of the neuromuscular system’s organization of the movement over time. The largest Lyapunov exponent (LyE) of the reconstructed attractors for the foot’s movement in the AP and ML was calculated. Results revealed that despite the obvious …

The Appropriate Use Of Approximate Entropy And Sample Entropy With Short Data Sets, Jenna M. Yentes, Nathaniel Hunt, Kendra K. Schmid, Jeffrey P. Kaipust, Denise Mcgrath, Nikolaos Stergiou

Journal Articles

Approximate entropy (ApEn) and sample entropy (SampEn) are mathematical algorithms created to measure the repeatability or predictability within a time series. Both algorithms are extremely sensitive to their input parameters: m (length of the data segment being compared), r (similarity criterion), and N (length of data). There is no established consensus on parameter selection in short data sets, especially for biological data. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to examine the robustness of these two entropy algorithms by exploring the effect of changing parameter values on short data sets. Data with known theoretical entropy qualities as well as experimental …

The Effect Of A Short Duration, High Intensity Exercise Intervention On Gait Biomechanics In Patients With Copd: Findings From A Pilot Study, Jenna M. Yentes, Daniel Blanke, Stephen I. Rennard, Nikolaos Stergiou

Journal Articles

Previous work has shown that patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) demonstrate changes in their gait biomechanics as compared to controls. This pilot study was designed to explore the possibility that biomechanical alterations present in COPD patients might be amenable to treatment by exercise training of skeletal muscle. This study investigated the effect of a 6-week exercise intervention on gait biomechanics in patients with COPD under both a rest and a non-rested condition. Seven patients with COPD underwent a supervised cardio-respiratory and strength training protocol 2-3 times per week for 6-weeks for a total of 16-sessions. Spatiotemporal, kinematic and …