• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
• /
• v.37 no.3
• /
• pp.239-244
• /
• 2013

To increase the safety of onboard evacuation of guests who is unfamiliar with onboard living conditions, this study measured and compared the onboard walking speeds of 81 participants on a passenger ship, I t were found that the walking speeds at corridor on navigation were slower than those at berth by 27.2%, and the speeds of walking on the corner on navigation were slower than those at berth by 23.2%. This means that the ship motion on navigation directly influenced walking speeds. The walking speeds of upward-stairs and downward-stairs were measured to be 0.71m/s and 0.75m/s, respectively. From the crowd counter-flow experiments, because of the narrow space between participants, the walking speeds were decreased as person after person. And it was clear that the group's walking speeds were determined by the walking speeds of leading person(s) of the group. The walking speeds obtained this study were different from those of IMO guideline(MSC/Circ 1033).

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.435-448
• /
• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate the kinemaitc gait parameter of lower extremities with different gait conditions(level walking, stairs, ramp) in old adults. Fourteen healthy older adults participated in this study and kinematic data were measured using 3D motion analysis system(Vicon, Oxford Metrics, England). Statistical analysis was used one-way ANOVA to know the difference of lower extremities angle at each gait phase with a different gait conditions. In sagittal plane, pelvic anterior tilt increased in stairs and ramp climbing and hip and knee flexion increased in stairs climbing but ankle dorsiflexion increased in ramp climbing. In frontal plane, pelvic was up in stairs and hip abduction and adduction more changed in stairs climbing than level walking. Knee varus and ankle inversion increased in stair climbing. In horizontal plane, pelvic internal rotation increased in stairs and ramp climbing and knee internal rotation increased in stairs climbing but ankle external rotation increased in stairs climbing. This results was shown that the stairs and ramp climbing changed the kinematic gait parameters of lower extremities in healthy old adults.

• Physical Therapy Korea
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.67-76
• /
• 1999

Going up and down the stairs is a repeated task in the activities of daily living. These activities are needed during the recovery process with impaired lower limbs. This paper presents the difference of EEI (energy expenditure index) through the slope of stairs. Twenty-one normal young adults took a part in this study (11 males, 10 females). They stepped up and down the stairs which had two different slopes for 5 minutes. Resting heart rate, walking heart rate, and moving distance were recorded. EEI was calculated from the heart rate and moving speed which was calculated by the distance of movement. Data were analyzed by repeated two-way ANOVA with SAS program and the difference of EEI through the slope of stairs was not statistically significant (p=0.9971). The results show that EEI was not affected by the slope of stairs in normal people. But distance of movement (p=0.0067) and speed (p=0.0064) had a significant difference.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.53-61
• /
• 2021

Purpose: This study examined the impacts of action observational physical training related to stair walking on the stair walking ability and self-efficacy of chronic stroke patients. Methods: This study was conducted on 24 chronic stroke patients, who were assigned randomly to an action observational physical training group (12 persons) and a landscape observation physical training group (12 persons). To the action-observational physical training group, five videos related to stair walking were presented, and after observing them, physical training was carried out. The landscape observation physical training group observed the videos consisting of landscape, where there were no humans and animals, and then underwent physical training. This study measured the rectus femoris, biceps femoris, tibialis anterior, and gastrocnemius to examine the muscle activity of the lower limb. A timed up and go and step test was performed to examine the balance ability, and a timed stair test was conducted to examine their stair walking ability. A self-efficacy scale was measured to examine the degree of their confidence of performing stair walking. The assessment was conducted three times in total: pre-, post-, and follow-up surveys. Results: As a result of this study, the action observational physical training group significant improvement after the intervention than in the landscape observation physical training group. Moreover, the follow-up study four weeks after the intervention showed significant improvements in the action observational physical training group (p<0.05). Conclusion: These results show that the action observational physical training had a positive impact on the stair walking ability and self-efficacy of chronic stroke patients.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.35 no.2
• /
• pp.136-145
• /
• 2011

This study identifies methods to design patterns for jeans that are suitable for women in their twenties. Five patterns suggested by previous researchers were used to draw the same size of jeans (waist 67 and hip 91). The author compared and analyzed the measurements and shapes of the patterns, ranging from waist to crotch. Samples were produced based on these patterns and then tests were conducted to observe the dynamic functions and exteriors of the samples. The dynamic functions observed in this study include walking, ascending stairs, descending stairs and sitting on chairs. The results of the current study are as follow. The best evaluated pattern in terms of exteriors is the one where the hips and thighs are tightest compared to other patterns and where the back part is wider than the front part. This pattern also received high evaluations in dynamic functions due to comfort when walking. Regarding ascending or descending stairs, the tests found that all its parts (except the front crotch) are more comfortable than those of any other patterns. All these results show that a comfortable fit and easy movement is possible when the crotch width of the back is broader than the hip width so that the hips are comfortably supported.

• Physical Therapy Korea
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.67-74
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of walking aid on hemiplegic gait of chronic stroke patients. Twelve stroke patients participated in this study. Physiological cost index (PCI), gait speed, and climbing stairs with and without walking aid were measured and analyzed. The results showed that walking with walking aid significantly improved gait speed and reduced physiological cost index and time needed to climb stair (height 7 cm) in comparison with a walking without walking aid. In conclusion, walking aid may improve the speed and efficiency of hemiplegic gait in chronic stroke patients.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 2006.04a
• /
• pp.312-314
• /
• 2006

Researches on biped robot walking have been mostly focusing on walking on even surfaces. Therefore, robot walking has been only realized on pre-specified spaces with pre-specified movements according to the previous researches. In this paper a walking system for a biped robot using fuzzy system and neural networks to overcome those constraints. The system enables biped walking to be possible in various environments and with more complicated obstacels. For the purpose, a walking robot should recognize its surrounding environment and determine its movement. In the proposed system, a robot dynamically generates its walking trajectories of each joint by using neural networks when facing new obstacle such as stairs, and it maintains its walking stability by using closed loop fuzzy control system which manipulates the waist joints.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
• /
• v.52 no.3
• /
• pp.181-189
• /
• 2015

Powered prosthesis is used to assist walking of people with an amputated lower limb and/or weak leg strength. The accurate gait phase classification is indispensable in smooth movement control of the powered prosthesis. In previous gait phase classification using physical sensors, there is limitation that powered prosthesis should be simulated as same as the speed of training process. Therefore, we propose EMG signal based gait phase recognition method to classify stairs ascending and stairs descending into four steps without using physical sensors, respectively. RMS, VAR, MAV, SSC, ZC, WAMP features are extracted from EMG signal data and LDA(Linear Discriminant Analysis) classifier is used. In the training process, the AHRS sensor produces various ranges of walking steps according to the change of knee angles. The experimental results show that the average accuracies of the proposed method are about 85.6% in stairs ascending and 69.5% in stairs descending whereas those of preliminary studies are about 58.5% in stairs ascending and 35.3% in stairs descending. In addition, we can analyze the average recognition ratio of each gait step with respect to the individual muscle.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.323-333
• /
• 2015

Objective : The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes of gait patterns and muscle activations with increased loads during stair walking. Also, it can be used as descriptive data about continuous stair walking in a real life setting. Method : Twelve sedentary young male adults(Age: $27.0{\pm}1.8yrs$, Weight: $65.8{\pm}9.9kg$) without any lower extremity injuries participated in this study. Participants performed stair walking up 7 floors and their ascending and descending motion on each floor was analyzed. A wireless electromyography(EMG) were attached on the Rectus Femoris(RF), Biceps Femoris(BF), Gastrocnemius(GN), Tibialis Anterior(TA) muscle to calculate integrated EMG(iEMG), median frequency(MDF) and co-contraction index(CI). Chest and left heel accelerometer signal were recorded by wireless accelerometer and those were used to calculate approximate entropy(ApEn) for analyzing gait pattern. All analyses were performed with SPSS 21.0 and for repeated measured ANOVA and Post-hoc was LSD. Results : During ascending stairs, there were a statistically significant difference in Walking time between 1-2nd and other floors(p=.000), GN iEMG between 2-3th and 6-7th(p=.043) floor, TA MDF between 1-2nd and 5-6th(p=.030), 6-7th(p=.015) floor and TA/GN CI between 2-3th and 6-7th(p=.038) floor and ApEn between 1-2nd and 6-7th(x: p=.003, y: p=.005, z: p=.006) floor. During descending stairs, there were a statistically significant difference in TA iEMG between the 6-5th and 3-2nd(p=.026) floor, and for the ApEn between the 1-2nd and 6-7th(x: p=.037, y: p=.000, z: p=.000) floor. Conclusion : Subjects showed more regular pattern and muscle activation response caused by regularity during ascending stairs. Regularity during the first part of stair-descending could be a sign of adaptation; however, complexity during the second part could be a strategy to decrease the impact.

• Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
• /
• v.3 no.3
• /
• pp.250-265
• /
• 2016

Owing to our rapidly aging society, accessibility evaluation to enhance the ease and safety of access to indoor and outdoor environments for the elderly and disabled is increasing in importance. Accessibility must be assessed not only from the general standard aspect but also in terms of physical and cognitive friendliness for users of different ages, genders, and abilities. Meanwhile, human behavior simulation has been progressing in the areas of crowd behavior analysis and emergency evacuation planning. However, in human behavior simulation, environment models represent only "as-planned" situations. In addition, a pedestrian model cannot generate the detailed articulated movements of various people of different ages and genders in the simulation. Therefore, the final goal of this research was to develop a virtual accessibility evaluation by combining realistic human behavior simulation using a digital human model (DHM) with "as-is" environment models. To achieve this goal, we developed an algorithm for generating human-like DHM walking motions, adapting its strides, turning angles, and footprints to laser-scanned 3D as-is environments including slopes and stairs. The DHM motion was generated based only on a motion-capture (MoCap) data for flat walking. Our implementation constructed as-is 3D environment models from laser-scanned point clouds of real environments and enabled a DHM to walk autonomously in various environment models. The difference in joint angles between the DHM and MoCap data was evaluated. Demonstrations of our environment modeling and walking simulation in indoor and outdoor environments including corridors, slopes, and stairs are illustrated in this study.