![]() Just above the silicone on the plastic is then the We-Vibe logo, and further up is the usable end of the toy with its angled flat surface, which is identical to its predecessor’s. At the end of the bullet is the magnetic charging plates similar to on the Tango II, however unlike the abrupt flat base of that version, the X comes to a gradual point. Three buttons then also rest here, protruding slightly from the silicone to allow for them to be pressed quickly and easily in order to control the toy’s 8 intensity levels and 7 modes (a big change from the II’s 8 in total). Rather than offering an alternative material however, this is solely intended to provide a handle for extra grip and reduced residual vibrations, which is a genius idea. The hard ABS plastic, that was one of my favourite aspects of the original, remains, but is now contrasted by a softer silicone that makes up almost half of the toy. The We-Vibe Tango X is unmistakably the Tango, with its signature lipstick-shape and bold colour options, yet still different enough in order to carve its own identity. Product Description The We-Vibe Tango X alongside the Tango II. After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it (except for the battery, of course, which definitely needed fixing). My main concern though, is that by taking a toy where simplicity was one of its biggest assets and adding more to it, We-Vibe run the risk of over-complicating it and losing that original charm. ![]() Advertised as having a stronger and increased range of vibrations alongside an upgraded design, that not only adds a strip of silicone for improved grip but two additional buttons for greater control as well, there is a lot to love with this new version. Shortly after (presumably in 2011 due to the whole 10th anniversary thing) it was then re-released as the version we all know and love, the Tango II, and now again this year as the Tango X (X standing for 10). ![]() The first Tango was released in 2010, however the differences between the two were minimal, and mostly just consisted of an alternative charging cord (AC rather than USB). It’s easy to forget, considering how at some point we collectively decided to just call the previous version of this toy the We-Vibe Tango, but it is actually the second edition of the model, officially named the Tango II. Since then though I have been just wishing We-Vibe would fix this issue and re-release it, and so when JOUJOU got in touch recently to let me know that was exactly what was happening to celebrate the toy’s 10th birthday, I couldn’t have been happier. I’ve spoken to people who have owned over ten Tangos in order to get their fix, but when mine died back in 2019, that was it for me, and eventually I found a replacement in the Dame Kip. But it had a dark secret, with a battery life that was unable to meet the demand its users placed on it. A marvel of simplicity mixed with raw power, We-Vibe’s unrelenting lipstick-shaped ABS plastic was the perfect vessel for rumbly vibrations that were ahead of their time, and the fuss-free design complimented them perfectly. Widely regarded as the most powerful bullet vibrator on the market, it wasn’t long before I got one of my own and fell madly in love with it just like everyone else. But the main toy that I kept hearing about over and over again, regardless of what the actual review was about, was the versatile We-Vibe Tango. They were things like the Njoy Pure Wand, Vixen Creations VixSkin Mustang, and Magic Wand Rechargeable, legendary toys that continue to maintain a cult following even today. When I first started reading sex blogs and toy reviews many years ago, there were a few products that would consistently be referenced across all of my favourite websites. ABS Plastic, Reviews, USB Rechargeable, Vibrators, We-Vibe Review: We-Vibe Tango X
0 Comments
![]() ![]() Say thank you to your customers this January on International Thank You Day February 20th - Start of Carnival Season Tip: Here are some great ideas for thank you emails. You could also hold a special event in store, offer a free gift with every purchase, or simply send out a warm thank you email to all your subscribers. One idea could be to launch a "thank you" sale or promotion, allowing customers to save money after the costly holiday period. January 11th is International Thank You Day and poses the perfect opportunity for your business to show your gratitude to customers in whichever way you see fit. January 11th - International Thank You Day Here's a monthly breakdown of exciting events coming up in 2023 that you can adapt for your own creative campaigns. What really sets your business apart from the rest is getting involved with unique holidays and events that keep your campaigns fresh and interesting to your target audience. Want more inspiration for 2023? Keep reading to discover more unique marketing opportunities your business can get involved in this year… 12 dates you need in your 2023 marketing calendarĮvery year has those key marketing dates that a marketer can't do without, such as Valentine's Day, Halloween, "Black Friday", etc. Once your team has approved your campaign, you can go ahead and export directly to use with your ESP.Upload design drafts to Mail Designer 365 Approval to get feedback and ideas from your team members.Build your email newsletter using the creative tools in Mail Designer 365.How to get started with your first campaign We’ve already provided you with some useful links to help you get started. and keep track of all your campaign planning in one useful document. Throughout the year, you can carry on noting down todos, campaign ideas, important links, etc. Use these dates and any others you want to include to fill out your 2023 email campaign planner. Once you have downloaded your free 2023 marketing calendar, you can skim through all the most important dates, holidays and sales periods coming up in 2023. ![]() 8 after the WBC announced earlier this month that Dirrell (30-1-1, 24 KOs), of Michigan, pulled out of fighting Benavidez because of injury. 1 in the WBC rankings, Smith was overlooked by the world governing body, who chose to sanction a fight between Benavidez (18-0, 17 KOs), of Phoenix, and Gavril (18-1, 14 KOs) on Sept. Smith (22-0, 17 KOs), 27, faces Sweden's Erik Skoglund (26-0, 12 KOs) at the Echo Arena in his home city of Liverpool on Sept 16 with the WBC's Diamond belt - a secondary belt to its world title - at stake.ĭespite sitting No. Smith was being lined up to contest the vacant WBC belt with Anthony Dirrell in Los Angeles next month, but the English boxer then changed course and agreed to enter the eight-man World Boxing Super Series tournament. Otar Erandsyan vs.You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browserĬallum Smith baffled by WBC, as Benavidez-Gavril fight for titleĬallum Smith criticised the WBC for sanctioning a fight between David Benavidez and Ronald Gavril for its vacant super-middleweight title. But I also don’t want to leave it in the judges’ hands like last time, so we’ll see what happens Saturday.” I’m the stronger fighter…I’m not looking for a knockout. I don’t know what people said after the first fight, but they should wait until after the rematch. Gavril stated, “His people tried to make him a superstar before he fought me. I’m not going in just throwing haymakers, but I’ll set it up and if it comes, it will come in spectacular fashion!” It’s not really looking for the knockout, it’s just setting it up. It’s going to be a combination of the body and chin. “I’m thinking it will be a knockout around Round 5. I worked so hard to get this, nobody can take it from me. I would love to fight the World Boxing Super Series winner. I want to earn every victory and fight the best. ![]() “I want to become the best in the division. All the hard work it took for me to get this belt, and people say it was just given to me? No way, I’m going to go in there and show why I’m the youngest champion in the super middleweight division. “This is the first time I’ve really had a chip on my shoulder. ![]() This time, we didn’t have any injuries or sickness so I can’t wait to put on a show on Saturday. “The sickness during the first fight took a lot out of me but my mentality is that I’m a warrior and I’m always going to push through it no matter what. Having everybody tell me Gavril should have won and him talking a lot of smack, it’s the motivation and drive that I needed to train the way I did in this camp. “I feel I could have done better in the first fight. I’m going to do what I say and I’m going to knock Gavril out! I’m ready to go in there and play no games. I stayed very dedicated to this training camp. We’ve been working on a lot of different styles for this fight and I feel more than ready. “He’s a one trick pony and he doesn’t have many tricks left, he’s getting old. “I don’t think Gavril can do any better than he did in the last fight,” stated Benavidez. ![]() Photo: Chris Farina/Mayweather Promotions The SHOWTIME-televised bout takes place at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. Undefeated WBC super middleweight world champion David Benavidez says he’s going to stop top-rated contender Ronald Gavril in Saturday’s rematch of their thrilling September 2017 bout in which Benavidez won the vacant title by split decision. ![]() Polygons form when paths are closed (i.e., all points are connected by a path). Polylines or paths connect the points, and designers can assign color, stroke weight, and stroke profiles to them. Points are invisible in the final graphic, but designers can edit them within the software to change the shape of the artwork. There are three elements to vectors: points, polylines and polygons. Vectors are essentially geometric shapes that can be stretched or curved as need be. Any other design intended for electronic useĪ vector image is an infinitely scalable digital graphic made out of mathematically calculated paths.Any imagery that uses photography or collage.Here is a general guide of which projects would better suit raster images: Nevergohungry’s poster and book cover designs shows the finer nuances of light and shadow using raster images. On the other hand, raster cannot be used for logos and are dependent on a high resolution when used for print. When it comes to illustration, raster is ideal for photorealism and larger scale images due to the amount of detail possible. ![]() Raster is the default format for photography, video, and web-based media. ![]()
![]() If you’ve never tried delicata squash, get ready to fall in love! With sweet, creamy flesh and thin, edible skin, it’s both delicious and easy to cook (no peeling necessary!). Showcase the season’s best produce in these fresh, inventive side dish recipes! For even more contrasting textures and flavors, I toss them both with pickled red onions, earthy lentils, and fresh mint. This hearty salad features carrots 2 ways: roasted and raw! The raw ones give it a nice crunch, while the roasted carrots add a delicious caramelized sweetness. Moroccan-Spiced Carrot Salad with Lentils, page 121 of Love & Lemons Every Day It’d be just as yummy with cooked quinoa or wild rice. I love using nutty farro in fall recipes like this one, but if you’re gluten-free, you can still enjoy this salad. An aromatic cider-date dressing ties it all together. Just 7 ingredients fill this bright, refreshing salad with a mouthwatering mix of textures and flavors.Įarthy goat cheese balances sweet pomegranate arils, Medjool dates, and caramelized butternut squash in this spiced-up fall salad. This bountiful salad is a wonderful addition to a Thanksgiving menu, but it’s so delicious that you’ll want to make it all season long. Thanks to crispy roasted chickpeas, toasted seeds, avocado, and a rainbow of veggies, it always keeps me full till dinnertime. This colorful salad is one of my favorite fall recipes to make for lunch. Serve it as a side dish, or enjoy it on its own for a hearty, healthy lunch. This recipe combines so many of my favorite ingredients: roasted sweet potatoes, tender arugula, avocado, feta cheese, and creamy tahini dressing. Packed with shades of red, orange, pink, and green, they’re a feast for the eyes as well as the tastebuds. Turkey, gravy, stuffing… This fall, I challenge you to embrace the colors of the season by making one (or more!) of the vibrant fall salads below. Salad Fall RecipesĪs we approach Thanksgiving every year, I feel like food gets more and more brown. This simple recipe has two basic steps: roast and blend! It’s flavorful, nourishing, and easy to make – perfect for a busy weeknight. ![]() Garnish your bowl with extra corn kernels and crispy coconut bacon to take it over the top! Yellow split peas add plant-based protein to this vegan riff on corn chowder. It’s already up on the blog, ready to be made time and time again. Luckily, you don’t need to wait for me to send it your way. After a few months (and a lot of reminders), I finally got it to her. Blended potatoes and white beans make up its velvety base, and lemon, vinegar, and smoked paprika create its tangy, smoky flavor.Īs soon as my mom tried this lentil soup, she asked for the recipe. This creamy soup looks decadent, but it’s secretly healthy. Waste not, want not!įall in a bowl! A lightly creamy miso broth surrounds savory autumn veggies, white beans, and nutty wild rice. Bonus points if you blend carrot tops into the pesto. This energizing carrot ginger soup tastes fantastic on its own, but it’s even better with a swirl of pesto on top. Feel free to toss in whatever veggies you have on hand! I’ve made this brothy, warming soup with a million combinations of vegetables, and it always comes out great. It’s so savory, creamy, and rich that you’ll want to enjoy a whole bowl (or two) on its own! Luckily for me, this recipe is super easy to make! Once I start cooking, a smoky bowl of veggie chili and a cozy blanket are just 30 minutes away.ĭon’t even think about hiding this cream of mushroom soup in your next green bean casserole. On cool fall nights, all I want to do is curl up on the couch with a bowl of chili. No collection of fall recipes would be complete without butternut squash soup! Sage, rosemary, and fresh ginger fill this easy one-pot soup with cozy autumn flavor. It might be chilly outside, but there’s a hot pot of soup bubbling away on the stove, and the kitchen is filled with the comforting scent of aromatic veggies and herbs. My favorite fall ritual is making soup on Sunday afternoons. Happy first day of fall! Soup Fall Recipes So whether you’re looking for quick fall dinner ideas, a healthy lunch, or a cooking project for an afternoon at home, you’re in the right place. They include cozy soups, fresh salads, decadent desserts, and everything in between. ![]() To celebrate the start of the season, I’m sharing over 60 of my favorite fall recipes below. Of course, I’ll miss our summer picnics and the nights when the sun didn’t set till 9, but I’m also excited for change – for hot bowls of soup, weekend baking, and long walks on crisp afternoons. It’s a chance for a fresh start, to dive headfirst into a new routine and new activities. ![]() I’m always sad to see summer go, but as I compiled this list of fall recipes over the weekend, I couldn’t help but look forward to the new season. And so far, incoming generations show no inclination to rotate the phone to solve the problem. That’s such a radical change in dimensions that no existing movie or TV show will fit unless it’s dramatically shrunken, to the point that most of the screen is black. A typical smartphone screen isn’t 16:9 it’s 9:16 when held normally (upright)-completely switched. If they don’t fit the screen perfectly, black bars (letterbox bars) fill the gaps.īut the switch to vertical videos is another story. You wouldn’t think our history of variable aspect ratios would be a big deal we can watch any of those movies on our TVs, tablets, and computers today. DVDs, Blu-ray, and 4K all inherited this shape, which is standard for all TV production today. Engineers settled on this first-time aspect ratio because it was the geometric mean between 4:3 (standard TV) and 2:35 (an average of typical movie ratios), so that an HDTV set could display both kinds of video without much “masking” by letterbox bars. Example: “To Fly!” (1976), portions of “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012). Much as VistaVision sought to improve resolution and quality by running 35mm film horizontally through the camera and projector, IMAX runs 70mm film horizontally. The film itself was twice as wide (70mm), creating much sharper images at larger projected sizes. By rotating the standard 35mm film 90 degrees, VistaVision scenes could be shot on a larger area of the film, resulting in a higher quality picture. Twentieth-Century Fox sought a similar widescreen image without the hassle and limitations of the three-camera system-by squishing (distorting) the wide image onto standard 35mm film, and then re-expanding it when projected. To combat that trend, special theaters offered this extremely wide picture, created by projecting three standard 35mm images side-by-side onto a giant curved screen. Home television viewing was depressing movie-theater ticket sales. To add sound to movies, engineers recorded an audio track on a thin strip alongside the video frames, resulting in a slight shift of the picture’s shape. ![]() Examples: “A Trip to the Moon” (1902), “The Sting” (1973), and all television until the rise of high definition. William Dickson, working in Thomas Edison’s lab, used multiple frames of standard Eastman Kodak 35mm film to create a video image. ![]() The smaller the ratio, the more square the picture the larger the ratio, the wider the image.) (An aspect ratio is expressed as either a horizontal-by-vertical proportion, like 4:3, or as its resulting ratio, like 1.33. This isn’t the first time aspect ratios (screen proportions) have changed-or have given society headaches. It’s kind of a mess: Vertical videos look ridiculous on TV sets and computer screens, but traditional horizontal videos play tiny and goofily on smartphones held upright. This month, my Scientific American column tackles the new era of vertical video-videos shot and viewed as tall, thin rectangles, suitable for smartphone screens without having to turn them. While the internet endlessly debated the origins of the design, the artist revealed he was inspired by memorial sweatshirts from Southern California’s Latino community. The artist behind the immensely popular Pablo-themed merch (and original DONDA design) was Cali Thornhill Dewitt, who had exhibited a series of similar pieces back in a 2014 LA exhibition and partnered with Berlin-based 032c to produce one the following year. ![]() Die-hard Yeezy fans quickly pointed to the Donda West crewneck sweater he has been spotted wearing since 2015 (most famously in Vic Mensa’s “U Mad” music video) as the inspiration. When Kanye West hit Madison Square Garden with his extravagant fashion show meets TLOP listening party back in February, the performer debuted a range of concert merchandise adorned with his newest lyrics – each phrase carefully set in a bold blackletter font. “You were only allowed to wear something like that if you were affiliated, and if you weren't, you were getting jammed up.” “Growing up in Venice in the 80s and 90s, I always saw gentlemen in my neighborhood wearing t-shirts and crewnecks with that font,” he added. “Those letters and that traditional layout are a part of my culture as a gang member,” Spanto explained to Dazed. The duo behind the brand, Spanto and 2tone, channeled the frustration and anger they felt from the gentrification overtaking their hometown into a debut collection with no shortage of the Old English font and its links to LA gang culture. Before Vetements or Pablo, pioneers like New York’s SSUR (founded back in 1990) as well as newer brands like Been Trill have been using the letter style – even A$AP Mob made use of the font for their debut collection of namesake merch in 2013.īorn x Raised is a Los Angeles streetwear label that has embraced a variant of blackletter since day one. ![]() It’s long been found in gothic subculture ( featuring in the pages of 80s and 90s goth bible Propaganda, for instance) and has been a frequently used motif in the world of streetwear for years. The letters may be sweeping through mainstream men’s and women’s fashion right now, but the style is nothing new. ![]() The bold and medievalesque style, sometimes referred to as gothic or Old English, has quickly risen to the go-to typeface choice for designers and labels alike this year – just look at Gucci’s SS16 menswear show, where it popped up on a hoodie. Whether you blame Kanye West and his Life of Pablo merch or Vetements and their longer-than-longsleeve t-shirts, one thing is certain: blackletter fonts are everywhere right now. ![]() The framedrops can get a bit bothersome during some battle sequences, and they are somewhat unpredictable when it comes to figuring out what triggers them. This makes for a very compelling package that brings dialog, plot and gameplay together wonderfully. Again, I don’t want to spoil too much as the writers have actually incorporated the combat mechanics into the story this means you will get to know your character and their abilities slowly throughout the game, but it also means it will have an anchor on the storytelling. The gaming is complex but not overwhelming, specially considering the staggered-but-not-boring tutorials, which allow you to get a grip on the control scheme and battle systems. Actually, for the kind of game that it is… it is perfect. You came here to know if this is any good to play. Speaking of combat, you didn’t come here to read me wax lyrical about how pretty the game looks or how much the story has been improved. Overall, the game looks and sounds fantastic, with only a few minor framedrops during in-game rendered cutscenes or busy combat. Toukiden 2 takes full advantage of every inch of computing power, including the extra RAM we got a few updates ago which closes system apps. Sure, it’s now in the twilight of its working life, but it’s so, so close to delivering Nintendo Switch quality visuals, it’s really rather impressive for a device this old. Considering monster hunter-type games are gameplay-driven, it’s a treat to have a story this complex and this well-written for Toukiden 2.Īnother thing that strikes a superb balance between the old and the new is the presentation: incredible draw distances show what the Vita can really do, even in 2017. I won’t spoil much for you, but there’s some intricate traveling going on, as well as a post-apocalyptic setting, inter-clan dynamics and much, much more. One could have done with some generic, amnesia-driven fare, but much like Ys VIII, Toukiden 2 has invested heavily on storytelling to go hand in hand with the gameplay. Is it any good, though? Let’s find out.įor a monster hunter type game, the story is actually fantastic. Toukiden 2 has come to Vita now, showing the continued commitment to supporting the handheld Koei Tecmo has followed through with for years. We got Kiwami not much later, as well as Freedom Wars around the same time, and people never seem to get enough of slaying beasts and upgrading their gear. Continued abuse of our services will cause your IP address to be blocked indefinitely.Toukiden made a huge impact on the Vita community when it launched, as we didn’t have a Monster Hunter game directly from the actual franchise. Please fill out the CAPTCHA below and then click the button to indicate that you agree to these terms. If you wish to be unblocked, you must agree that you will take immediate steps to rectify this issue. If you do not understand what is causing this behavior, please contact us here. If you promise to stop (by clicking the Agree button below), we'll unblock your connection for now, but we will immediately re-block it if we detect additional bad behavior. Overusing our search engine with a very large number of searches in a very short amount of time.Using a badly configured (or badly written) browser add-on for blocking content.Running a "scraper" or "downloader" program that either does not identify itself or uses fake headers to elude detection.Using a script or add-on that scans GameFAQs for box and screen images (such as an emulator front-end), while overloading our search engine.There is no official GameFAQs app, and we do not support nor have any contact with the makers of these unofficial apps. Continued use of these apps may cause your IP to be blocked indefinitely. This triggers our anti-spambot measures, which are designed to stop automated systems from flooding the site with traffic. Some unofficial phone apps appear to be using GameFAQs as a back-end, but they do not behave like a real web browser does.Using GameFAQs regularly with these browsers can cause temporary and even permanent IP blocks due to these additional requests. If you are using the Brave browser, or have installed the Ghostery add-on, these programs send extra traffic to our servers for every page on the site that you browse, then send that data back to a third party, essentially spying on your browsing habits. ![]() We strongly recommend you stop using this browser until this problem is corrected. ![]()
The light-hearted energy of this trend communicates vitality, youthfulness and a sense of playful optimism: offering welcome relief for brands and consumers seeking comfort from the past while staying firmly rooted in today. Often with a retro undertone (but that still feels modern), these bright red fonts are typically accompanied by minimalist doodles or cartoons that recreate a classic look that doesn’t feel dated. Traditionally, fonts are either black or white, but in 2023 we’re seeing an increasing trend towards red as the first colour of choice. Bright redĪ branding concept by renaissancexiv that uses bright red type (Image credit: Renaissancexiv) But while this particularly knowing kind of Gen Z attitude is a more light-hearted reflection of the anti-establishment sentiment rising to the surface of society, it’s certainly not letting the establishment off the hook for a second, either. Smoky forms, sharp edges and often all-black compositions create fonts that are expressive and youthful.Ĭlosely linked to the punk revival happening more broadly across the design world, this style has a subtle edge, leaning into the slightly tongue-in-cheek barbed wire, chains, and skull motifs that represent this trend. After a viral resurgence on TikTok, where users embraced the irony of a commercialised subculture, designers are drawing inspiration from this style when it comes to typography. ‘Mall Goth’ is a throwback to a post-goth subculture that first emerged in the late nineties and continued through the early noughties. Think Hot Topic, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park: the Nu Metal era at its peak. The 'mall goth' font trend in lettering design by nSkill (Image credit: nSkill) Expect decorative ears and terminals, italicised letters - and always, always a sense of class and composure. These fonts are delicate and aesthetically pleasing, often with small flourishes - a swirling loop on a ‘g’, or a reaching foot on a capital ‘R’. The timelessness of this trend lends itself to publications that have become digital first, being able to recreate a sense of familiarity with audiences through different mediums.īrands getting in on the action of this trend include Burberry who, in a move that sparked joy in the hearts of designers world-wide, has moved away from the bland sans serif wordmarks and gone back to its serif-loving roots. ![]() We’re seeing this particularly in styles that hark back to the kinds of fonts first printed in eighties high fashion magazines: serifed, tall, and elegant. ![]() A typeface designed by Jen Wagner featuring narrow serifs (Image credit: Jen Wagner)Ģ022 might have held more bubbly, rounded fonts, but in 2023 things are looking a little more sophisticated. ![]() ![]() Unfortunately, the implementation of DFA to stride interval time series is not yet standardized and varies considerably between studies, in which decisions are usually made on an ad hoc or subjective basis. The results from such studies should therefore be interpreted with caution.īesides the length of time series under consideration, another practical aspect of DFA that significantly affects the analysis outcome is the set of parameters used in the algorithm: the box size range, the box size increment, and the order of polynomial fits for a detrending operation. Such relatively long recordings, however, are difficult to collect from older adults or clinical populations, and thus the vast majority of previous studies have collected stride interval time series in these populations for only 2–5 min (i.e., between 100 and 250 strides) ( Moon et al., 2016). Some studies have even suggested that DFA cannot give reliable results with time series shorter than 4,096 data points ( Eke et al., 2002). Previous studies using simulated and/or experimental signals have shown that estimation accuracy is directly related to the series length, and lengths of around 500–600 data points or less, corresponding to the number of stride intervals from approximately 10–12 min of self-paced walking, yield questionable results due to the high bias and variance in the estimation of the scaling exponent ( Damouras et al., 2010 Marmelat and Meidinger, 2019). As a result, these measures could be used as a marker for gait adaptability, gait disorder, and fall risk among patients with movement disorders, such as Parkinson's disease (PD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Huntington's disease (HD).Īlthough DFA has become the de facto standard for analyzing statistical persistence in gait data, it too is sensitive to the length of the time series, which remains a significant limitation. Specifically, scaling exponent-like quantities, including the DFA's scaling exponent and the Hurst exponent, show normal human walking produces persistent stride time fluctuations and a drift toward randomness is observed with aging and neurological disorders ( Hausdorff et al., 1997, 2000). (1996) and provides reasonably accurate results for short time series as compared to other classical methods for estimating the Hurst exponent ( Delignieres et al., 2006). This may be because DFA was used by the pioneering works of Hausdorff et al. While many methods of fractal analysis exist to explore long-range autocorrelations in stride interval time series, detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) has been the most commonly used. More advanced, nonlinear analysis methods, derived from chaos theory, have therefore been proposed to analyze the temporal organization of gait variability ( Chau, 2001). In other words, the variability of stride intervals (or gait variability) could be treated as a meaningful and interpretable metric of gait. However, steady-state walking could be characterized by the presence of subtle variations observed in stride intervals (the time period between consecutive initial contacts of the same foot). Gait analysis has been generally studied using traditional linear analysis methods, adopting biomechanical models in which variability was not of interest (e.g., comparing the means of spatio-temporal gait parameters between groups). A set of guidelines for the selection of the fractal methods and the length of stride interval time series is provided, along with the optimal parameters for a robust implementation for each method. The results demonstrate that a careful selection of fractal analysis methods and their parameters is required, which is dependent on the aim of study (either analyzing differences between experimental groups or estimating an accurate determination of fractal features). The advantages and drawbacks of each method are discussed, in terms of biases and variability. The Hurst exponent, scaling exponent, and/or fractal dimension are computed from both simulated and experimental data using three fractal methods, namely detrended fluctuation analysis, box-counting dimension, and Higuchi's fractal dimension. This study is designed to systematically and comprehensively investigate two practical aspects of fractal analysis which significantly affect the outcome: the series length and the parameters used in the algorithm. 2Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canadaįractal analysis of stride interval time series is a useful tool in human gait research which could be used as a marker for gait adaptability, gait disorder, and fall risk among patients with movement disorders. ![]() 1Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canada.Angkoon Phinyomark 1 * Robyn Larracy 1,2 Erik Scheme 1,2 |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |