title: How does it feel to run in minimalist and advanced footwear technology shoes: A qualitative study involving male recreational runners

authors: Hébert-Losier, Kim

abstract: We examined the perceptions and experiences of male recreational runners when using minimalist racing flats (FLAT, Saucony Endorphin Racer 2) and advanced footwear technology (AFT, Nike Vaporfly 4%) shoes, compared with their habitual shoes (OWN). Eighteen runners completed three 1.5 km outdoor trials, running in OWN first, followed by FLAT and AFT in a randomised counter-balanced order. Semi-structured interviews conducted before and after each trial provided qualitative data, analysed using a six-phase reflexive thematic approach. Five interconnected themes emerged: ‘novelty and familiarity’, ‘feel’, ‘performance’, ‘biomechanics’, and ‘injury’. Runners’ perceptions were shaped by iterative feedback loops combining experiential, educated, and instinctual assessments. OWN shoes were generally ranked highest for comfort and lowest for perceived injury risk due to familiarity and balanced design. Novel shoes elicited mixed reactions. FLAT shoes were valued for their lightweight and natural feel, but raised concerns about discomfort and potential injury from minimal cushioning and support. AFT shoes were appreciated for their bounciness and performance potential, but raised concerns about instability and excessive cushioning. Findings indicate that footwear comfort is multifaceted, context-dependent, and not always aligned with performance or injury reduction. Runners often prioritised performance over comfort in competitive scenarios, highlighting the inherent trade-offs in footwear selection and the importance of personalised approaches. Concerns about injury and biomechanics changes underscore the need for gradual transitions to novel footwear. By adopting a real-world approach, this study advances understanding of footwear perceptions, emphasises the dynamic and subjective nature of runners’ experiences, and offers practical implications for runners, clinicians, and shoe manufacturers.

text: How does it feel to run in minimalist and advanced footwear technology shoes: A qualitative study involving male recreational runners We examined the perceptions and experiences of male recreational runners when using minimalist racing flats (FLAT, Saucony Endorphin Racer 2) and advanced footwear technology (AFT, Nike Vaporfly 4%) shoes, compared with their habitual shoes (OWN). Eighteen runners completed three 1.5 km outdoor trials, running in OWN first, followed by FLAT and AFT in a randomised counter-balanced order. Semi-structured interviews conducted before and after each trial provided qualitative data, analysed using a six-phase reflexive thematic approach. Five interconnected themes emerged: ‘novelty and familiarity’, ‘feel’, ‘performance’, ‘biomechanics’, and ‘injury’. Runners’ perceptions were shaped by iterative feedback loops combining experiential, educated, and instinctual assessments. OWN shoes were generally ranked highest for comfort and lowest for perceived injury risk due to familiarity and balanced design. Novel shoes elicited mixed reactions. FLAT shoes were valued for their lightweight and natural feel, but raised concerns about discomfort and potential injury from minimal cushioning and support. AFT shoes were appreciated for their bounciness and performance potential, but raised concerns about instability and excessive cushioning. Findings indicate that footwear comfort is multifaceted, context-dependent, and not always aligned with performance or injury reduction. Runners often prioritised performance over comfort in competitive scenarios, highlighting the inherent trade-offs in footwear selection and the importance of personalised approaches. Concerns about injury and biomechanics changes underscore the need for gradual transitions to novel footwear. By adopting a real-world approach, this study advances understanding of footwear perceptions, emphasises the dynamic and subjective nature of runners’ experiences, and offers practical implications for runners, clinicians, and shoe manufacturers.

year: 2025-12-01

title: Nanoswimmer-oriented Direct Targeting Strategy Inspired by Momentum-based Gradient Optimization

authors: Ali, Muhammad

abstract: This paper considers the advantage of knowledgeaided direct targeting strategy (DTS) over systemic targeting for tumor homing in complex human vasculature. Tumor location in the body can be estimated by closely observing the tumortriggered bio-physical gradients in its vicinity, helping drugloaded magnetic nanoswimmers to accumulate at the disease location. These nanoswimmers are assembled by magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs), which act as contrast agents increasing the diagnostic capability of different medical imaging techniques. We propose a novel DTS inspired by the iterative gradient descent (GD) with momentum optimization for tumor targeting amplification. We show by computational experiments that the MNPs accumulate at the disease location at a faster rate and the probability of tumor detection is higher for the proposed knowledge-aided DTS as compared to the knowledgeless systemic targeting. We believe that our work for tumor targeting amplification based on such nanosystem will open new horizons in the field of diagnosing tumor at its early stage.

text: Nanoswimmer-oriented Direct Targeting Strategy Inspired by Momentum-based Gradient Optimization This paper considers the advantage of knowledgeaided direct targeting strategy (DTS) over systemic targeting for tumor homing in complex human vasculature. Tumor location in the body can be estimated by closely observing the tumortriggered bio-physical gradients in its vicinity, helping drugloaded magnetic nanoswimmers to accumulate at the disease location. These nanoswimmers are assembled by magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs), which act as contrast agents increasing the diagnostic capability of different medical imaging techniques. We propose a novel DTS inspired by the iterative gradient descent (GD) with momentum optimization for tumor targeting amplification. We show by computational experiments that the MNPs accumulate at the disease location at a faster rate and the probability of tumor detection is higher for the proposed knowledge-aided DTS as compared to the knowledgeless systemic targeting. We believe that our work for tumor targeting amplification based on such nanosystem will open new horizons in the field of diagnosing tumor at its early stage.

year: 2019

title: Māori loanwords: a corpus of New Zealand English tweets

authors: Trye, David

abstract: Māori loanwords are widely used in New Zealand English for various social functions by New Zealanders within and outside of the Māori community. Motivated by the lack of linguistic resources for studying how Māori loanwords are used in social media, we present a new corpus of New Zealand English tweets. We collected tweets containing selected Māori words that are likely to be known by New Zealanders who do not speak Māori. Since over 30% of these words turned out to be irrelevant (e.g., mana is a popular gaming term, Moana is a character from a Disney movie), we manually annotated a sample of our tweets into relevant and irrelevant categories. This data was used to train machine learning models to automatically filter out irrelevant tweets.

text: Māori loanwords: a corpus of New Zealand English tweets Māori loanwords are widely used in New Zealand English for various social functions by New Zealanders within and outside of the Māori community. Motivated by the lack of linguistic resources for studying how Māori loanwords are used in social media, we present a new corpus of New Zealand English tweets. We collected tweets containing selected Māori words that are likely to be known by New Zealanders who do not speak Māori. Since over 30% of these words turned out to be irrelevant (e.g., mana is a popular gaming term, Moana is a character from a Disney movie), we manually annotated a sample of our tweets into relevant and irrelevant categories. This data was used to train machine learning models to automatically filter out irrelevant tweets.

year: 2019