Leather and Footwear Journal

Volume 16, no 1

Contents
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The Effect of Different Shoe Outsole Shape on Plantar Loading Distribution during Running in Chinese Male Undergraduate Students
- Pages 5-14
  Luming YANG^1,2*, Shuwen WU¹
  - ¹National Engineering Laboratory for Clean Technology of Leather Manufacture, Chengdu, 610065, China, email: ylmll1982@126.com
  - ²Key Laboratory of Leather Chemistry and Engineering (Sichuan University), Chengdu, 610065, China
  ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of different shoe outsole shapes on plantar loading distribution during running. Three pairs of shoes with different outsole shapes were selected, which were Skechers Go Run Ultra-C (shoe 1), Nike Free 5.0 (shoe 2) and Mizuno Wave Ascend 8 (shoe 3). The midfoot area of outsole in shoe 2 was flat while shoe 1 had a convex-shaped outsole, and the outsole of shoe 3 was concave in the midfoot area. We hypothesized that the three different shoe outsole shapes had a significant effect on the plantar pressure distribution, especially as the outsole shape changed from convex to concave the pressure presented an obvious increasing trend in the forefoot and rearfoot region. 20 healthy male recreational runners were recruited for this study. A Pedar-X in-shoe pressure measure system (Novel GmbH, Munich, Germany) was used for data collection. Subjects were asked to wear each pair of shoes and ran at 2.2 m/s on a treadmill. The order of test shoes was randomized. The data of right foot was collected for the statistical analysis and five foot strikes were averaged for each trail. The results of this study demonstrated significant differences in plantar loading distribution between the 3 different kinds of shoes, as the outsole shape changed from convex to concave the pressure presented an obvious increasing trend in the forefoot and rearfoot region.
  
  KEY WORDS: running shoes, outsole, shape, plantar loading
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Footwear Quality Evaluation Using the Quality Index
- Pages 15-28
  Alina IOVAN-DRAGOMIR*, Alexandra LUCA
  - "Gheorghe Asachi" Technical University, Iasi, 29 D. Mangeron Blvd., alina.dragomir@windowslive.com, alexandra.luca@tuiasi.ro
  ABSTRACT. In accordance with Global Industry Analysts, the world footwear market is expected to reach approximately 195 billion Euro in 2015. The quality index is an instrument for the footwear quality evaluation, which allows ranking the products and the producers. It gives the buyer information on price justification. The quality index (Iq) characterises a product in relation to its attributes: comfort (Ic), wear behaviour (Ip), aesthetics and style (Ie). One cannot talk about quality as an attribute without degrees of comparison. Quality cannot be only a superlative. Based on its attributes and the degree to which it fulfils its functions, footwear can respond to certain needs for quality to a greater or smaller extent. The quality index can be calculated for a new or used product, with or without the users opinion. These indexes are determined based on the reference structure and the destination of that product. The maximum score (100) is considered when the requirement is totally fulfilled, while the minimum score (0) is given when the requirement is not fulfilled. The score can be determined in comparison with another product that can be the control product or not, or based on the personal experience of the person carrying out the evaluation. The aim of this study is to prove reliability of this quality evaluation system. For this, three models of mens shoes were selected and a group of 11 persons, women and men, were asked to give scores for each requirement.
  
  KEY WORDS: quality, footwear, quality index, comfort
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Effects of High Heels on Centre of Pressure Progression during Walking in Young Women
- Pages 29-42
  Meiling RAN, Furong HAO, Luming YANG*, Shuwen WU
  - Key Laboratory of Leather Chemistry and Engineering (Sichuan University), Ministry of Education, Chengdu 610065; National Engineering Laboratory for Clean Technology of Leather Manufacture, Chengdu 610065; e-mail: yangluminglulu@qq.com
  ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study was to discuss the differences in centre of pressure (COP) spatio-temporal progression during walking between barefoot condition and wearing high heels condition. The data were collected from 35 young women by a combined Footscan® system. The mean COP path, the displacement and phase of COP, the relationship of the peak medial-lateral displacement with time and the plantar pressure of five plantar regions were calculated in both barefoot and wearing high heels condition. The mean COP path from 160 mm to the end in the y-axis direction turned to the lateral again when walking in high heels, but the mean COP path kept shifting to the medial of the foot with an increasing speed when walking barefoot. Compared to walking barefoot, the percentage time of the initial contact phase and the foot flat phase significantly increased in wearing high heels condition. The maximum medial-lateral displacement of the COP and the maximum medial-lateral displacement of the forefoot COP were significantly greater in barefoot condition than wearing high heels, but the maximum anterior-posterior displacement of the COP showed a contrary consequence (p = 0.000; 0.000; 0.000, respectively). An eccentric second lateral shift occurred in forefoot push-off phase indicated a lateral deformation of hallux during walking in high heels. An increased plantar pressure under heel region suggested that the impact from ground reaction force was associated with heel types.
  
  KEY WORDS: centre of pressure, high heels, walking, plantar pressure, phase
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INGA 3D - Creative Transfer of Competence in 3D Footwear CAD to VET Professionals
- Pages 43-54
  Aura MIHAI¹, Mariana COSTEA¹*, Bogdan SÂRGHIE¹, Esperanza ALMODOVAR FALCO², Rosana PEREZ², Amaya SAN MARTIN², Carlos FERRIZ², Carlos V. CARVALHO³, Claudia AZEVEDO³, Lili Pavlinova PAVLOVA⁴, Christopher NESTER⁵, Anita WILLIAMS⁵, Antonio MIRALLES⁶, Manolo GOMEZ⁶
  - ¹"Gheorghe Asachi" Technical University of Iasi, Romania, mpastina@tex.tuiasi.ro
  - ²INESCOP, Spain
  - ³Virtual Campus, Portugal
  - ⁴IED-European Institute of Design, Spain
  - ⁵University of Salford, United Kingdom
  - ⁶RED 21, Spain
  ABSTRACT. INGA 3D project - Creative Transfer of Competence in 3D Footwear CAD to VET Professionals aims to transfer and extend innovative software solutions and 3D technologies for Footwear Computer Aided Design. The project brings together universities, research and training centres, adult education providers and IT companies from Romania, Spain, Portugal, and UK. The project products introduce innovative solutions for e-learning in order to test and to validate new teaching methodologies and approaches suitable for vocational training. The INGA 3D training content, its supportive guide as well as the online learning platform was designed, developed, tested and evaluated in line with the best practices identified by partners in their institutions, countries and elsewhere in Europe. INGA 3D project contributes to developing skills and competencies of VET teachers, trainers, tutors, in order to face the future challenges raised by the necessity of adding to the current curricula in VET institutions ICT skill sets that will enable their graduates to work with highly specialized footwear CAD technologies.
  
  KEY WORDS: 3D CAD, footwear, e-learning, VET professionals, skills and competences
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Investigation of Motion Balance of Children with Spastic Diplegia
- Pages 55-64
  Ying SONG^1,2, Haojun FAN^1,2, Jin ZHOU^1,3*, Bo XU^1,2, Jianxin WU³
  - ¹National Engineering Laboratory for Clean Technology of Leather Manufacture, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, P.R.China, e-mail: zj_scu@qq.com
  - ²Key Laboratory for Leather Chemistry and Engineering of the Education Ministry, Chengdu 610065, P.R. China
  - ³Science Lab, Zhejiang Red Dragonfly Footwear Co., Ltd., Wenzhou 325105, P.R. China
  ABSTRACT. The aim of this study was to find the features of balance control of cerebral palsy (CP) children by exploring the variances between the CP and TD groups in terms of centre of pressure (COP) deviation, velocity and sum of distances. Eighteen spastic diplegia children (CP) and 36 typical developed counterparts (TD) who were matching with age, height and weight were recruited and measured by pressure plate and then COP parameters such as Relative deviation in the X (Dxrel) and Y axis (Dyrel), Relative velocity in the X (Vxrel) and Y axis (Vyrel) and Relative sum distance in X (Dxrel) and Y axis (Dyrel). Independent T test and reliability analysis were carried out with significance level of 0.05 and confidence interval of 95%. Our results show that Dxrel, Vxrel, Vyrel, SumXrel and SumYrel of CP were significantly higher than those of TD; meanwhile COP of CP was always located at the medial side of foot which indicated a severe valgus and distances in anterior-posterior (AP) direction of CP were smaller than that of TD. At last, a reasonable repeatability was obtained for CP, since their COV of Dxrel, Dyrel, Vxrel, Vyrel, SumXrel and SumYrel CoV were overall <13%, whereas, with exception of ICC of Vxrel and SumXrel, ICC of Dxrel, Dyrel and SumYrel were higher than 0.5. Overall, in order to fulfill the balance control, strategies of foot valgus, larger deviation in medial-lateral (ML) direction, longer contact time and higher velocity in AP and ML directions were adopted by CP children.
  
  KEY WORDS: spastic diplegia, balance control, centre of pressure, plantar pressure measurement
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