Wednesday, August 10, 2022

When it comes to riding hoverboards, it's all in the ankles

Engineering researchers have some simple advice for people learning to ride hoverboards: it’s all in the ankles.

An experiment using sophisticated cameras and sensors attached to first-time riders revealed that ankle movements, not knee or hip movements, are the key to catching on to the increasingly popular devices.

“Those who learned faster and performed better had strongly adopted an ankle strategy, meaning that they controlled their ankle motion by activating or co-activating the muscles around them,” said Arash Arami, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo and senior author of a new study.

Hoverboards have a motor and two wheels connected by a platform. Riders steer and balance with their feet, although some models are self-balancing.

While new riders would be wise to concentrate on ankle movement, the study by researchers in Canada, the United Kingdom and Japan also showed the central nervous system somehow seems to just know the best strategy to use.

After a short familiarization session, volunteers were primarily relying on ankle movements within a few minutes of maneuvering hoverboards back and forth using three different foot positions.

“The process of learning how to ride a hoverboard is largely subconscious,” Arami said. “Interestingly enough, our central nervous system can usually figure it out without much instruction, so take it easy and enjoy the ride.”

Researchers theorize ankle movement is primarily used to learn to ride because they’re the joints closest to the board, primates generally learn better with their hands and feet, and the central nervous system often tries to minimize muscular effort.

The researchers used hoverboards as a tool to investigate how the central nervous system, including the neural networks in the brain and spinal cord, controls human movement. 

The results have implications for the design of platforms for balance training for older adults at risk of falls and stroke survivors in rehabilitation clinics. They could also help with the design of hoverboards and similar devices, such as snowboards.

Researchers are ultimately interested in using technology to develop assistive and rehabilitative robotics systems to allow people with impairments to regain movement.

“Hoverboards, as simple as they appear, help us dig into how we control our lower limbs and deepen our understanding of human motor control,” Arami said.

Arami and Mohammad Shushtari, lead author and a PhD candidate at Waterloo, collaborated with engineers at NTT Communication Science Laboratories in Japan and the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in the UK.

A paper about their work, Balance strategy in hoverboard control, appears in the journal Scientific Reports.

Q and A with the experts: Canada's rising inflation

Inflation in Canada is at the highest rate we've seen in decades. Jean-Paul Lam, a professor in the University of Waterloo's Department of Economics and former assistant chief economist and principal researcher at the Bank of Canada, says recent events created a perfect storm for inflation. 

How is inflation measured?

Inflation is measured monthly by Statistics Canada (StatCan). StatCan collects prices from establishments in Canada of goods and services. The Consumer Price Index, or CPI, is a basket of goods and services that is representative of the household expenditure of Canadians. It is divided into eight major components, things like food, shelter, transportation, and clothing. StatCan surveys these establishments monthly and looks at how prices have changed compared to the same period the previous year.

Why has Canada's inflation been rising? 

The government responded very quickly and decisively to this enormous shock of COVID by providing Canadians with a lot of cash in Canada Emergency Response Benefit and wage subsidies. These programs were meant to support consumption and investment in the economy. Many governments worldwide implemented those programs to ensure that their economies would not collapse. And that was the right measure to do at the time. So, this increased the spending and purchasing power of Canadians because we had lots of cash, despite the severe economic slowdown. We diverted a lot of this extra cash to the purchase of goods. And what happened at the time was a lot of factories were being shut down, and a lot of workers were unable to go to work. So, the supply of goods suffered tremendously during COVID. Also, now with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where this has put enormous pressure on the supply of food and energy. So, you had this perfect storm of large increases in demand for goods, but at the same time significant decline in the supply of goods, which resulted in the inflation we are seeing now. 

Who's hit hardest when inflation is so high?

Inflation usually hits the lowest-income group the hardest, and that's because they spend a higher proportion of their income on food, shelter, and transportation. And those are the three components right now that are growing at the fastest rate. 

How do we get out of this?

I think the central banks around the world, including the Bank of Canada, have done what they should be doing, which is raising interest rates significantly to get inflation down. What these increases in interest rate do is reduce consumption because it makes consumption more expensive. The other way, obviously, we need governments to be prudent in their spending.

How long will this last?

We've learned a lot from the 1970s and the 1980s about how inflation could be managed. Inflation is temporary. It's not going to be the same inflation we've seen in the past. It's going to be painful for the next 12 to 16 months. But eventually, it will go away. Fundamentally, the economy is strong. That might change, but right now, the economy is fairly strong.

Listen to Jean-Paul Lam on the Beyond the Bulletin podcast. 

Jean-Paul Lam is an associate professor in the Economics department whose research focuses on macroeconomics and monetary economics.

A look back at the International Health Promoting Campuses symposium

A message from the Wellness Collaborative.

The International Health Promoting Campuses Symposium, held on May 12, 2022, was a one-day event that aimed to activate the Okanagan charter on higher education campuses around the world. The Okanagan charter was an outcome of the 2015 International Conference on Health Promoting Universities and Colleges, which called on higher education settings to embed health into all aspects of campus culture, administration and academic mandates, and lead health promotion action and collaboration locally and globally. Although held virtually, attendees remarked on an acute sense of global community striving for the same vision: improving the health of our campuses and revitalizing the lived experiences of our students.

The opening keynote was delivered by Dr. Shannon Waters, an Indigenous public health physician in Canada. Dr. Waters’ presentation spoke about the link between body and environment, working as an ecosystem to improving health. Dr. Waters related this work to the campus ecosystem, emphasizing the remarkable interconnectedness between the health of a campus and the subsequent positive outcomes of students and the greater community. The audience was also greeted by leaders of national health promoting campuses networks, including from across the world from Dr. Christine Stock in Germany, Ana Martinez-Pérez from the Ibero America network to Dr. Rajiv Yeravdekar from India and Melissa Potwarka from University of Waterloo representing Canada.

Attendees of the symposium came from a diverse range of backgrounds, from academics to management, students, educators, student support service providers, researchers, and executive members of universities and colleges around the world who are interested in advancement of health promotion and public health, well-being, equity, and sustainability within campuses. From a true international panel of experts, presentations illustrated the activation of the Okanagan charter in a diverse range of campus settings. Breakout rooms allowed for smaller discussions to share knowledge of how to apply the Okanagan charter locally and workshop strategic implementation of health promotion processes in higher education. These breakout rooms provided the opportunity to truly collaborate with others who are committed to strengthening student voices and engagement, centering the lived experiences, and addressing social determinants of health and health equity.

With a strong focus on student involvement, Veronica Nhio-son, an undergrad student at Waterloo and member of the Wellness Collaborative, shared highlights of the day from global leaders, including the collective understanding of how deep wellness runs, critical discussions of eco-grief, and the importance of taking a step back to listen to Indigenous people. Other members of Waterloo’s Wellness Collaborative, including Savanah Seaton, Ashley Ryan and Jennifer McCorriston, narrated their journey working on the Okanagan Charter and the challenges involved in taking a whole-systems approach to wellbeing in higher education. Professors at UWaterloo shared how they are mobilizing the priorities of the Wellness Collaborative; some spoke of changes to syllabus to be more wellness focused, while others discussed the efforts made to be more accessible to their students, such as extending office hours. Other student attendees from Waterloo chimed in with their role in promoting campus wellness, with involvement in equity and Anti-racism groups on campus.

After an exciting day of presentations and vigorous discussion, the ending keynote was delivered by Sione Tu’itahi, Executive Director of the Health Promotion Forum of New Zealand and Chairperson of IUHPE Global Working Group on Waiora Planetary Health and Human Wellbeing. In this keynote, the vision of the Okanagan Charter was driven home: “Together, we can transform the health and sustainability of our current and future societies, strengthen communities and contribute to the wellbeing of people, places and the planet.”

To read more about the event from a student’s perspective, follow the link: https://uwaterloo.ca/wellness-collaborative/students-perspective-international-health-promoting-campuses