Walking in cities has a long history, but its organized form has boomed in recent years. Some walks aim to make a city more “open, accessible, and equitable” (Open City 2023). Top-ranked ones on Tripadvisor tend to focus on culinary, cultural, or historical highlights. Others push planned developments in Orlando and Dubai (Universal Studios 2023; Merex Investment Group 2023). This essay reflects on the experience of making a podcast, historicity, to argue that walking in a city can do more. It can reveal the connections between particular sights and the urban whole, the wealth and power by which a city is riven, and the links between it and the world. It can show how these things have changed over time. And by doing this, it can empower the walker. Understanding how a city got to be the way it is, on the streets, can provide some space to make a self at home. Exposing the multiple streams that lead to the present – and the seams that they have opened up in the urban fabric – makes it possible to imagine how things might be different. Any one podcast or tour can only do so much, however. There will always be more walks to take, streams to discover, and stories to tell.

Walking mechanisms offer advantages over wheels or tracks for locomotion but often require complex designs. This paper presents the kinematic design and analysis of a novel overconstrained spatial a single degree-of-freedom leg mechanism for walking robots. The mechanism is generated by combining spherical four-bar linkages into two interconnecting loops, resulting in an overconstrained design with compact scalability. Kinematic analysis is applied using recurrent unit vector methods. Dimensional synthesis is performed using the Firefly optimization algorithm to achieve a near-straight trajectory during the stance phase for efficient walking. Constraints for mobility, singularity avoidance, and transmission angle are also implemented. The optimized design solution is manufactured using 3D printing and experimentally tested. Results verify the kinematic properties including near-straight-line motion during stance. The velocity profile shows low perpendicular vibrations. Advantages of the mechanism include compact scalability allowing variable stride lengths, smooth motion from overconstraint, and simplicity of a single actuator. The proposed overconstrained topology provides an effective option for the leg design of walking robots and mechanisms.

Research in lower limb wearable robotic control has largely focused on reducing the metabolic cost of walking or compensating for a portion of the biological joint torque, for example, by applying support proportional to estimated biological joint torques. However, due to different musculotendon unit (MTU) contractile speed properties, less attention has been given to the development of wearable robotic controllers that can steer MTU dynamics directly. Therefore, closed-loop control of MTU dynamics needs to be robust across fiber phenotypes, that is ranging from slow type I to fast type IIx in humans. The ability to perform closed-loop control the in-vivo dynamics of MTUs could lead to a new class of wearable robots that can provide precise support to targeted MTUs for preventing onset of injury or providing precision rehabilitation to selected damaged tissues. In this paper, we introduce a novel closed-loop control framework that utilizes nonlinear model predictive control to keep the peak Achilles tendon force within predetermined boundaries during diverse range of cyclic force production simulations in the human ankle plantarflexors. This control framework employs a computationally efficient model comprising a modified Hill-type MTU contraction dynamics component and a model of the ankle joint with parallel actuation. Results indicate that the closed-form muscle-actuation model’s computational time is in the order of microseconds and is robust to different muscle contraction velocity properties. Furthermore, the controller achieves tendon force control within a time frame below $ 18\mathrm{ms} $, aligning with the physiological electromechanical delay of the MTU and facilitating its potential for future real-world applications.

Few studies have examined the influence of pre-exercise meals with different glycaemic indices (GIs) on substrate oxidation and non-homeostatic appetite (i.e. food reward) in adults of various ages and ethnicities. We aimed to examine the effects of pre-exercise high and low GI meals on substrate oxidation and food reward in middle-aged Japanese women. This randomised crossover trial included fifteen middle-aged women (aged 40⋅9 ± 6⋅5 years, mean ± sd). The participants consumed a high or low GI breakfast at 09.00 and rested until 11.00. Thereafter, participants performed a 60-min walk at 50 % of their estimated maximum oxygen uptake (11.00–12.00) and rested until 13.00. Expired gas samples were collected every 30 min prior to walking, and samples were collected continuously throughout the walking and post-walking periods. Blood samples and subjective appetite ratings were collected every 30 min, except during walking. The Leeds Food Preference Questionnaire in Japanese (LFPQ-J) was used to assess food reward at 09.00, 10.00, and 13.00 h. The cumulative fat oxidation during exercise was higher in the low GI trial than in the high GI trial (P = 0⋅03). The cumulative carbohydrate oxidation during walking was lower in the low GI trial than in the high GI trial (P = 0⋅01). Trial-by-time interactions were not found for any food-reward parameters between trials. Low GI meals elicited enhanced fat oxidation during a subsequent 60-min walk in middle-aged women. However, meals with different GIs did not affect food reward evaluated over time in the present study.

Modern rehabilitation processes for neurological patients have been widely assisted by robotic structures, with continuous research and improvements. The use of robotic assistance in rehabilitation is a consolidated technique for upper limb training sessions. However, human gait robotic rehabilitation still needs further research and development. Based on that, this paper deals with the development of a novel active body weight support (BWS) system integrated with a serious game for poststroke patients. This paper starts with a brief review of the state of the art of applied technologies for gait rehabilitation. Next, it presents the obtained mathematical model followed by multibody synthesis techniques and meta-heuristic optimization to the proposed device. The control of the structure is designed using proportional integral derivative (PID) controllers tuned with meta-heuristic optimization and associated with a suppression function to perform assist-as-needed actions. Then, the prototype is integrated with a serious game designed specifically for this application. Finally, a pilot study is conducted with the structure and healthy volunteers. The results obtained show that the mobility of the novel BWS is as expected and the proposed system potentially offers a novel tool for gait training.

The purpose of this study was to identify internal and external factors associated with outdoor winter walking in older adults. In this scoping review, 12 databases were searched. Inclusion criteria included English language, focus on adults 65 years of age or older, and evaluation of factors associated with outdoor winter walking. Two authors screened titles/abstracts and full text. Conflicts were resolved by consensus. Data were extracted, organized into tables, and summarized as pertaining to barriers/facilitators and internal/external factors associated with outdoor winter walking. A total of 6,843 articles were identified, 1,898 duplicates were removed, 4,789 were excluded during title/abstract screening, and 148 were excluded during full-text review. Eight studies were included. Four categories of factors affecting outdoor winter walking in older adults were identified: adverse weather conditions, physical environment, physical function, and perceptions relating to winter walking conditions. Rehabilitation and exercise professionals can use the results to educate their clients and implement the facilitators of and alternatives and solutions to barriers to outdoor winter walking.

Being active in later life is key to remaining physically and mentally healthy, and health in turn influences individuals’ ability to remain active. Activity prevalence figures can disguise the existence of clusters of older people who are very active due to regular participation in multiple categories of activity versus those who are sedentary. The aim of this study was to conduct segmentation analyses based on retired seniors’ engagement in various activities (walking, active sport/exercise, gardening and volunteering) to identify groups characterised by varying patterns of participation. The sample comprised 746 Western Australians aged 60+ years (range 60–95 years, average age 71.66 years, standard deviation = 6.57), 61 per cent of whom were female. Using latent profile analysis, four distinct segments emerged. Those respondents classified as belonging to the most active group exhibited moderate to high levels of participation across all four forms of activity, and tended to be older and more educated than other respondents. Those allocated to the least active group had very low levels of participation across most of the assessed activities and the least favourable physical and mental health scores. Overall, the results indicate the existence of highly divergent segments within the older population in terms of participation across various combinations of health-promoting activities. Segment membership appears to be more closely associated with physical and psychological factors than socio-demographic characteristics.

The assemblage of water/watery/watering is a lively cartography of how water may be accounted for when theorising with and through environmental education research. Challenging the universalising claims of Western technoscience and the colonial logic of extraction, the article develops an alternative theoretical mapping of environmental education through engagements with Ingold’s (2007, 2012, 2015) concepts of lines, knots, and knotting. For this article and for the Special Issue in which it is housed, the concepts of such knottings are defined as an assemblage of haecceities, lived events that are looped, tethered and entangled as material and conceptual agencies that inhere within situated encounters. Thus, this article grapples with the need to account for water differently in contemporary posthuman ecologies. To overcome anthropocentric and mastery-oriented approaches, various other ways to account for water in science or environmental education will continue to come to the surface, bubbling and rushing like a waterfall as they have done in this work. Some of these will include thinking with water, which will be central to a theoretical mapping of water that seeks embrace sticky knots. The article explores a (re)turn to artful practices and encounters as spaces in which posthumanist concepts for environmental education might be cultivated.

Both walking abilities and pointing gestures in infants are associated with later language skills. Within this longitudinal study we investigate the relationship between walk onset and first observed index-finger points and their respectively predictive value for later language skills. We assume that pointing as a motor as well as a communicative skill is a stronger predictor of later language development than walk onset. Direct observations, parent questionnaires, and standardized tests were administered in 45 children at ages 1;0, 2;0, 3;0, and 4;0. Results show that both walk onset and early index-finger pointing predict language abilities at age 2;0, but only early index-finger pointing predicts language skills at ages 3;0 and 4;0. Walk onset seems to contribute to an initial increase in language acquisition without a sustained advantage. The predictive value of first observed index-finger points, however, is strong and lasts at least until age 4;0.