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Background: The growth of urban dwelling populations globally has led to rapid increases of research and policy initiatives addressing associations between the built environment and physical activity (PA). Given this rapid proliferation, it is important to identify priority areas and research questions for moving the field forward. The objective of this study was to identify and compare research priorities on the built environment and PA among researchers and knowledge users (e.g., policy makers, practitioners)., Methods: Between September 2022 and April 2023, a three-round, modified Delphi survey was conducted among two independent panels of international researchers (n = 38) and knowledge users (n = 23) to identify similarities and differences in perceived research priorities on the built environment and PA and generate twin 'top 10' lists of the most important research needs., Results: From a broad range of self-identified issues, both panels ranked in common the most pressing research priorities including stronger study designs such as natural experiments, research that examines inequalities and inequities, establishing the cost effectiveness of interventions, safety and injuries related to engagement in active transportation (AT), and considerations for climate change and climate adaptation. Additional priorities identified by researchers included: implementation science, research that incorporates Indigenous perspectives, land-use policies, built environments that support active aging, and participatory research. Additional priorities identified by knowledge users included: built environments and PA among people living with disabilities and a need for national data on trip chaining, multi-modal travel, and non-work or school-related AT., Conclusions: Five common research priorities between the two groups emerged, including (1) to better understand causality, (2) interactions with the natural environment, (3) economic evaluations, (4) social disparities, and (5) preventable AT-related injuries. The findings may help set directions for future research, interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaborations, and funding opportunities., (© 2023. Crown.)

Inertial measurement units (IMUs) represent an exciting opportunity for researchers to broaden our understanding of running-related injuries, and for clinicians to expand their application of running gait analysis. The primary aim of our study was to investigate the 1-week (short-term) and 3-month (long-term) reliability of peak resultant, vertical, and anteroposterior accelerations derived from insole-embedded IMUs. The secondary aim was to assess the reliability of peak acceleration variability and left-right limb symmetry in all directions over the short and long term. A sample of healthy adult rearfoot runners ( n  = 23; age 41.7 ± 11.2 years) ran at a variety of speeds (2.5 m/s, 3.0 m/s, and 3.5 m/s) on a treadmill in standardised footwear with insole-embedded IMUs in each shoe. Peak accelerations exhibited good to excellent short-term reliability and moderate to excellent long-term reliability in all directions. Peak acceleration variability showed poor to good short- and long-term reliability, whereas the symmetry of peak accelerations demonstrated moderate to excellent and moderate to good short- and long-term reliability, respectively. Our results demonstrate how insole-embedded IMUs represent a viable option for clinicians to measure peak accelerations within the clinic.

Background: Injuries resulting from collisions between a bicyclist and driver are preventable and have high economic, personal and societal costs. Studying the language choices used by police officers to describe factors responsible for child bicyclist-motor vehicle collisions may help shift prevention efforts away from vulnerable road users to motorists and the environment. The overall aim was to investigate how police officers attribute blame in child (≤18 years) bicycle-motor vehicle collision scenarios., Methods: A document analysis approach was used to analyse Alberta Transportation police collision reports from Calgary and Edmonton (2016-2017). Collision reports were categorised by the research team according to perceived blame (child, driver, both, neither, unsure). Content analysis was then used to examine police officer language choices. A narrative thematic analysis of the individual, behavioural, structural and environmental factors leading to collision blame was then conducted., Results: Of 171 police collision reports included, child bicyclists were perceived to be at fault in 78 reports (45.6%) and adult drivers were perceived at fault in 85 reports (49.7%). Child bicyclists were portrayed through language choices as being irresponsible and irrational, leading to interactions with drivers and collisions. Risk perception issues were also mentioned frequently in relation to poor decisions made by child bicyclists. Most police officer reports discussed road user behaviours, and children were frequently blamed for collisions., Conclusions: This work provides an opportunity to re-examine perceptions of factors related to motor vehicle and child bicyclist collisions with a view to prevention., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

The wide frequency range of the human hearing could be narrowed by various pathologies in the middle ear and in the tympanic membrane that lead to conductive hearing loss. Diagnosing such hearing problems is challenging, however, often relying on subjective hearing tests supported by functional tympanometry. Here we present a method for in vivo 2D mapping of the impulse response of the tympanic membrane, and demonstrate its potential on a healthy human volunteer. The imaging technique is based on interferometric spectrally encoded endoscopy, with a handheld probe designed to scan the human tympanic membrane within less than a second. The system obtains high-resolution 2D maps of key functional parameters including peak response, rise and decay times, oscillation bandwidth and resonance frequency. We also show that the system can identify abnormal regions in the membrane by detecting differences in the local mechanical parameters of the tissue. We believe that by offering a full 2D mapping of broad-bandwidth dynamics of the tympanic membrane, the presented imaging modality would be useful for effective diagnosis of conductive hearing loss in patients., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The high speckle contrast in reflectance confocal microscopy is perhaps the most limiting factor on this imaging modality, particularly in high scattering samples such as biological tissues. In this Letter, we propose and numerically analyze a method for speckle reduction that uses simple lateral shifting of the confocal pinhole in several directions, which results in reduced speckle contrast and only a moderate penalty in both lateral and axial resolutions. By simulating free-space electromagnetic wave propagation through a high-numerical-aperture (NA) confocal imaging system, and assuming only single-scattering events, we characterize the 3D point-spread function (PSF) that results from full-aperture pinhole shifting. Simple summation of four different pinhole-shifted images resulted in a 36% reduction in speckle contrast, with reductions of only 17% and 60% in the lateral and axial resolutions, respectively. This method could be particularly useful in noninvasive microscopy for clinical diagnosis, where fluorescence labeling is impractical and high image quality is imperative for achieving accurate diagnosis.

Red blood cells in small capillaries exhibit a wide variety of deformations that reflect their true physiological conditions at these important locations. By applying a technique for the high-speed microscopy of flowing cells, termed spectrally encoded flow cytometry (SEFC), we image the light reflected from the red blood cells in human capillaries, and propose an analytical slipper-like model for the cell morphology that can reproduce the experimental in vivo images. The results of this work would be useful for studying the unique flow conditions in these vessels, and for extracting useful clinical parameters that reflect the true physiology of the blood cells in situ ., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to this article., (© 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement.)

Introduction: Running-related injuries (RRIs) occur from a combination of training load errors and aberrant biomechanics. Impact loading, measured by peak acceleration, is an important measure of running biomechanics that is related to RRI. Foot strike patterns may moderate the magnitude of impact load in runners. The effect of foot strike pattern on peak acceleration has been measured using tibia-mounted inertial measurement units (IMUs), but not commercially available insole-embedded IMUs. The aim of this study was to compare the peak acceleration signal associated with rearfoot (RFS), midfoot (MFS), and forefoot (FFS) strike patterns when measured with an insole-embedded IMU., Materials and Methods: Healthy runners ran on a treadmill for 1 min at three different speeds with their habitual foot strike pattern. An insole-embedded IMU was placed inside standardized neutral cushioned shoes to measure the peak resultant, vertical, and anteroposterior accelerations at impact. The Foot strike pattern was determined by two experienced observers and evaluated using high-speed video. Linear effect mixed-effect models were used to quantify the relationship between foot strike pattern and peak resultant, vertical, and anteroposterior acceleration., Results: A total of 81% of the 187 participants exhibited an RFS pattern. An RFS pattern was associated with a higher peak resultant (0.29 SDs; p = 0.029) and vertical (1.19 SD; p < 0.001) acceleration when compared with an FFS running pattern, when controlling for speed and limb, respectively. However, an MFS was associated with the highest peak accelerations in the resultant direction (0.91 SD vs. FFS; p = 0.002 and 0.17 SD vs. RFS; p = 0.091). An FFS pattern was associated with the lowest peak accelerations in both the resultant and vertical directions. An RFS was also associated with a significantly greater peak acceleration in the anteroposterior direction (0.28 SD; p = 0.033) than an FFS pattern, while there was no difference between MFS and FFS patterns., Conclusion: Our findings indicate that runners should be grouped by RFS, MFS, and FFS when comparing peak acceleration, rather than the common practice of grouping MFS and FFS together as non-RFS runners. Future studies should aim to determine the risk of RRI associated with peak accelerations from an insole-embedded IMU to understand whether the small observed differences in this study are clinically meaningful., Competing Interests: LF and NT are employees of Plantiga Technologies, Inc. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Napier, Fridman, Blazey, Tran, Michie and Schneeberg.)