The impact of Nordic walking training on the gait of the elderly

The purpose of the current study was to define the impact of regular practice of Nordic walking on the gait of the elderly. Thereby, we aimed to determine whether the gait characteristics of active elderly persons practicing Nordic walking are more similar to healthy adults than that of the sedentary elderly. Comparison was made based on parameters computed from three inertial sensors during walking at a freely chosen velocity. Results showed differences in gait pattern in terms of the amplitude computed from acceleration and angular velocity at the lumbar region (root mean square), the distribution (Skewness) quantified from the vertical and Euclidean norm of the lumbar acceleration, the complexity (Sample Entropy) of the mediolateral component of lumbar angular velocity and the Euclidean norm of the shank acceleration and angular velocity, the regularity of the lower limbs, the spatiotemporal parameters and the variability (standard deviation) of stance and stride durations. These findings reveal that the pattern of active elderly differs significantly from sedentary elderly of the same age while similarity was observed between the active elderly and healthy adults. These results advance that regular physical activity such as Nordic walking may counteract the deterioration of gait quality that occurs with aging.     

Blockchain technology awareness on social media: Insights from twitter analytics

PurposeThis study investigates the affective technology acceptance model applied to the case of blockchain through Twitter text mining.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis focuses on mapping the acceptance drivers of the blockchain technology by visualizing the users perception constructs through Blockchain hashtags. More than 5000 relevant tweets per day were collected between December 15, 2020, and January 15, 2021. The Kruskal-Wallis and the Mann-Whitney tests were applied over the frequency of the characteristics and the emotions' measurements to validate the research hypotheses.FindingsThe results prove that users show more interest in security, shareability, and decentralization characteristics. Therefore, the blockchain technology usefulness is rather perceived in the informational domain, and the blockchain ease of use is further expressed in smart contracts as a use case. Blockchain benefits are more discussed than the drawbacks among Twitter users. Besides, positive feelings with strong emotions of trust and joy dominate among users. In summary, the results show significant awareness of users towards blockchain technology.OriginalityTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is the first study that explores the affective technology acceptance model with user-generated content analysis.