Toe speed during gait generally nears its maximum while its height reaches a local minima approximately halfway through swing phase. Trips are thought to frequently occur at these local minima (minimum toe clearance or MTC events) and trip risk has been quantified using the minimum distance between the toe and ground here (MTC). This study investigated MTC on floor surfaces with and without mul...

While the effects of legal and institutional arrangements on political participation are well documented, little attention has been given to the potential participatory effects of one of the United States’ most important electoral laws: constitutionally mandated reapportionment. By severing the ties between constituents and their incumbents, we argue, redistricting raises information costs, lea...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of pressure relief magnitude on heel blood hyperemia in persons with and without diabetes mellitus. DESIGN Study participants (1 group of persons with diabetes and 1 group without diabetes) lay on a support surface for 70 minutes with 1 heel on an end cell of a support surface. Cell pressure was computer controlled to be 20 mm Hg during support and 5 or 0 ...

Background Foot morphology has received increasing attention from both biomechanics researches and footwear manufacturers. Usually, the morphology of the foot is quantified by 2D footprints. However, footprint quantification ignores the foot's vertical dimension and hence, does not allow accurate quantification of complex 3D foot shape. Methods The shape variation of healthy 3D feet in a popu...

CONTEXT Stretching exercises are commonly prescribed for patients and healthy individuals with limited extensibility of the gastrocnemius muscle. OBJECTIVE To determine effects of gastrocnemius stretching on ankle dorsiflexion, knee extension, and gastrocnemius muscle activity during gait. DESIGN Randomized-control trial. SETTING Biomechanical laboratory. PARTICIPANTS Sixteen volunteers...

A theory for equinus gait in cerebral palsy (CP) is that the strong plantarflexors prevent the weak dorsiflexors from achieving dorsiflexion, thereby causing the ankle to be in a plantarflexed position. Recent work has indicated that both the ankle dorsiflexors and plantarflexors are weak. The purpose of this research was to theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that equinus deformity ga...

Introduction The heel rise test is commonly used as a strength test for the triceps surea muscle group but has also become widely used as a functional task to aid in the diagnosis of Posterior Tibial Tendon Dysfunction (PTTD) [1,2]. Although failure to invert the hindfoot during the heel rise test is reported to be a sign of failure in the posterior tibial muscle, posterior tibialis function ma...