June 2021

ISB Now June 2021

ISB News

President's Blog - Toni Arndt

XXVIII Congress of the International Society of Biomechanics Update

Students Corner - Megan Stewart

ISB2021 Congress Tutorials - Jacqueline Alderson & Dario Cazzola

ISB2021 Congress Awards - Tim Derrick

ISB2021 Congress Travel Awards - Katherine Boyer

Economically Developing Countries Initiatives - Daniel Hahn

South American Representative Report - Felipe Carpes

ISB Technical Group News

3D Analyis of Human Movement Technical Group 

Motor Control Technical Group

President's Blog - June 2021

Dear ISB members,

I am writing my last blog as ISB President and am very excited! We have all managed to get through maybe the most unexpected, serious international challenge that has hit us for a long time. During my term, we have not only had a catastrophic, unique pandemic with unbelievable consequences and tragedies. We have also had an unprecedented escalation of information presented that reveals a blatant resistance to scientific facts. These two phenomena have proven a number of extremely important points for us as human beings.

We learnt that the human race is fragile. And that is a good thing. A reality check. Nobody knows whether it really was a contamination involving bats in a market in Wuhan or whether Covid-19 originated somewhere else, but something, apparently minor, started off somewhere and has had an iron grip on the World for a year and a half. But we have managed! We, people, are amazing. We are strong (but not always as strong as we believe), we adapt, we innovate, we find solutions. Who of us knew that we would develop a complete, international, advanced culture of zoom-meetings in a year? Or realise that all the environmentally disastrous travel that we were used to was actually quite often unnecessary? How many of us haven’t opened up completely new aspects of our lives to more intensely appreciate our closer surroundings, our family, friends, nature. The important things.

We are scientists. That is what ISB is. Your strong society is an amazing conglomerate of international experts in our field, of companies that have revolutionised possibilities for biomechanical measurements and importantly students thirsting for knowledge that senior legends in exactly the questions they are exploring can provide illumination for. We need to keep this tradition going, we need to have scientific facts at the centre of what we do. We need the culture of academic integrity to communicate the knowledge we obtain in our research. That is what ISB stands for.

On a more personal note. My pledge as ISB President was an intense drive for internationalisation, which has always been my strength and is an important component in advancing science which I am especially passionate for. Many fledgling international groups had approached me to either help with establishing national societies of biomechanics or invited me as keynote lecturer to promote biomechanics in their conferences. I would never have dreamt that in my two years as ISB President I would not be able to assist in person in any of these processes.

Now we have the most important and exciting event on the ISB calendar coming up in only about a month! ISB2021, originally planned to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, will now be completely digital and I am sure it will set an extremely high standard for large international, digital congresses. If you haven’t checked out the latest information, please visit the homesite: https://isb2021.com/ and register! This is something we all need; we need to see each other, we need the scientific exchange, we need biomechanical stimulation. It will be digital, and it will be good.

Thank you for all the support and enthusiasm from all of you during my Presidency. It has been a fantastic, sometimes unexpected, but always invigorating experience and I am proud of the strength ISB has as an international scientific society. I would like to express a very special thankyou to Joe Hamill for his support not only as my predecessor but throughout my whole life in biomechanics – it has been an honour working with you and I sincerely hope we continue our great personal and scientific relationship. I am thoroughly looking forward to continuing as the ISB Past President and continuing the advancement of ISB together with the new President, Alberto Leardini.

Take care, Toni (ISB President)

XXVIII Congress of the International Society of Biomechanics Update

Dear colleagues and friends!

The XXVIII Congress of the International Society of Biomechanics is rapidly approaching. It will be the first virtual conference in the history of the ISB and will be held from July 25-29, 2021, with digital headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden.

We would like to invite you to take part in ISB2021!

An impressive number of abstracts were submitted, which provides a fantastic base for many high quality, stimulating scientific sessions. Many of you will have been informed of acceptance for oral or poster presentations and specific times and instructions for your presentations will be sent to you in a matter of days.

We are proud to present world class keynote lectures including the prestigious Wartenweiler Award lecture by Susan Margulies and the lecture by Muybridge Award winner Scott Delp. Further keynote lectures will be held by Bronwen Ackermann, Yves Vanlandewyck, Hazel Screen and Conor J Walsh. The concluding Presidential lecture will be given by the outgoing ISB President, Toni Arndt.

A series of panel debates will be held every day highlighting and disseminating current controversial issues in biomechanics such as advanced materials in sports, synergistic force sharing, peer review, biorobotics and models in clinical settings. The additional exciting program also includes educational tutorials on the first day, opportunities for social interaction for delegates, student mentoring possibilities, and innovative sessions for the companies sponsoring the congress. Please visit the congress homepage for more details concerning the content and program and speakers: https://isb2021.com/ We are confident that our congress will set new standards for gender equality.

The four days of scientific presentations will be staggered timewise to provide the best possibilities for delegates from different time zones to attend. Similarly, the greatest effort is being made to provide presenters with time slots suitable for their timezone, to facilitate live presentations by all presenters. All presentations will be recorded and made available to delegates so that you can watch all content at times convenient for you during the congress but also for a certain time after the congress.  Besides the scientific program, we will provide many possibilities for personal interaction with colleagues and friends. We aim to set an impressive benchmark for future digital conferences.

Registration for ISB2021 is open on the conference website: https://isb2021.com/registration/. We are approaching 1000 registered delegates and, although we have little experience in such prognosis, are hoping for up to 1500 participants, which would be an impressive base for a thoroughly successful ISB congress! Due to the fantastic support from sponsors and the host universities, we have been able to keep the registration fees low, with especially attractive rates for ISB members, students and delegates from economically developing countries.

We are looking forward to meet you at ISB2021!

Toni Arndt                                            Professor in Biomechanics                  The Swedish School of Sport                                                          and Health Sciences, GIH	Lanie Gutierrez-Farewik                                                             Professor in Biomechanics      Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)	Li Felländer-Tsai                                                                               Professor in Orthopedics Karolinska Institute (KI)

Students Corner - Megan Stewart (ISB Student Representative)

Overview

I hope that everyone is staying safe and healthy. I wanted to share a few things with you for this student corner. With ISB going virtual this year, I am planning a virtual student event as well as a mentor event for 2021 (Be sure to check the box for mentorship when registering). Get excited!!

We have some great ideas for both the student event at ISB 2021 and the mentoring event! Be on the lookout for more information as the date gets closer! I cannot wait to see all of you!

Get ready for ISB 2021 in Virtual Stockholm!

Information

For any and all graduate positions and employment, remember to stay up to date with Biomch-L.

Here is the link:  https://biomch-l.isbweb.org/forums/5-Jobs-and-Positions

Social Media

Be sure to keep up to date with ISB by liking our ISB Facebook Page, joining the Student Members Facebook Page, and following ISB on Twitter. Please reach out to me with any comments, questions, suggestions, or just to talk. You can contact me at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Best Wishes,

Megan Stewart (ISB Student Representative

ISB2021 Congress Tutorials

Dear ISB members,

At this year’s ISB 2021 there will be plenty of … tutorials! One of the upsides of a virtual conference is that you are able to register for all four tutorials so you won’t have to miss out on anything you wanted to attend. The fantastic line up of tutorials we have organised will be presented live across a range of timings, with each also being recorded. This means if you register for a tutorial and are unable to view the live recording you will be able to watch the tutorial recording at later time convenient to you – a necessary adaptation given the virtual conference and the challenges related to delegate and presenter time zones.

Our intention is to expose you to the most advanced and forward-looking methods in biomechanics, from both experimental (wearable sensors, imaging), and computational (optimal control, machine learning) perspectives. We truly hope you will enjoy and make the most out of them!

Please find below the brief summary of the tutorials following this link:

https://isb2021.com/program/tutorials/

All the best.

Dario and Jacque (ISB Educational Officers)

ISB2021 Congress Awards

Reviewers are diligently working on evaluating the applicants for the six ISB 2021 conference awards. This is a group of applicants that excels in both quantity and quality. Even the two brand new awards, the Jacqueline Perry Emerging Female Scientist Award and the ISB World Athletics Award for Biomechanics, had a good response. Good luck everyone and we look forward to seeing the winners present at the 2021 conference.   

Tim Derrick (Awards Officer)

ISB2021 Congress Travel Grant Awardees

Congratulations to the following award awardess of the ISB Congress Travel Grant (CTG):

Katherine Boyer (Student Awards Officer)

Economically Developing Country Initiatives

As the ISB is looking forward to their fast approaching 28^th congress, it is our great pleasure to report from our efforts in supporting biomechanists from economically developing countries (EDC) to attend the congress. In support to enable EDC students to attend ISB 2021, we launched an EDC student travel grant. In total we received 49 applications from twelve different EDC and we awarded 21 students from seven EDC (Brazil, China, Chile, India, Iran, Mexico, Pakistan, and Taiwan).

Additionally to the EDC student travel grant, ISB also launched a Developing Countries Grant Competition (DCGC), sponsored by Vicon, Tekscan, and ISB. Ten applicants submitted their abstracts to compete in the DCGC and a panel of reviewers selected five finalists from five different countries (Bénin, Brazil, China, India, Malaysia) to present their abstracts at a DCGC Award Session at ISB 2021. Accordingly, we are looking forward to an exciting final and wish good luck to all finalists.

Daniel Hahn (EDC Officer)

South America Representative Report - Felipe Carpes

COVID-19 and the Biomechanics community

Although this is not the primary goal of this report, I consider it important to say a few words about the sanitary condition of Latin America and its impacts on biomechanics development. The pandemic is still showing us its worst face in the different countries from Latin America. The vaccination programs are highly variable among the nations, and teaching and research are still significantly compromised for most of them. Research is compromised by remote teaching, the limitations to develop face-to-face activities, and the critical budget cuts imposed by the governments and research agencies. It is also important to note the pandemic hits stronger the people with lower economic conditions, representing most of the people in countries from Latin America, and has a devastating effect on education. We have no clear idea about what is going on in the next few months and years as many projects are stopped and significantly delayed. Still, I am sure that the support of ISB members from places in better conditions will be fundamental to help the biomechanics community from Latin America and other economically developing countries to recovery. Stay open for connections, support and mentor students. Whenever possible, promote hybrid events that will permit people from these countries to participate, and together we will go through this. The pandemic is creating a considerable gap between economies, people, research, and development. To overcome this condition will require much more than being able to travel and attending face-to-face conferences. We need a plan to fight the gaps being created and still strong as an international society.

Latin American Meeting of Biomechanics

Since the XVII Brazilian Congress of Biomechanics in 2017, there is a continuous effort from members of Latin America to establish a regular agenda for the "Latin American Meeting of Biomechanics." The meeting has happened in Brazil so far, and it is time to go beyond Brazilian borders. To make it possible, a group of around 50 people initially coordinated by Joel Alvarez-Ruf and Felipe P Carpes and including lecturers, professors, representative students from Universities of the different Latin American countries, and also representants from the community and industry meet virtually to discuss the strategies to leverage the development of this meeting as an opportunity to establish networks and create opportunities for biomechanics researchers in Latin America. This meeting has approved that after the III Edition in Brazil, the IV Edition will happen in Chile, and there will be a regular flow for institutions willing to promote editions of the meeting, following some specific guidelines concerning the format and the goals of the meeting. We strongly believe that this initiative can promote profound advances to biomechanics in Latin America, and we hope to have the support of the ISB community.

The III Latin American Meeting of Biomechanics will be part of the XIX Brazilian Congress of Biomechanics. 

XIX Brazilian Congress of Biomechanics

The XIX Brazilian Congress of Biomechanics will happen only next September 13-17. We invite you all to join us: www.cbb2021.com.br. The program of the congress has 41 speakers confirmed from all over the world, including Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, United States, Canada, French, United Kingdom, South Africa, and Belgium. The congress program includes but is not limited to 13 tutorials, 10 keynote lectures, 3 round tables, the 13^th Symposium on Motor Control and Biomechanics by the Motor Control Group ISB, the III Latin American Meeting of Biomechanics, live oral presentations, video-abstract sessions in addition to the general assembly of the Brazilian Society of Biomechanics and cultural presentations. The bests abstract will be candidate for several scientific prizes, including the Walter Herzog Undergraduate Research Award. We would like to acknowledge the support of APD Motion, the diamond sponsor of the conference.

Abstracts can be submitted by June 30.

i-FAB 2021

The i-FAB 2021 was a success. I would like to share with the ISB members a message from Professor Isabel Sacco, from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, the chair of the conference.

We would like to share with the ISB community the activities developed at the International Foot & Ankle Biomechanics Meeting 2021 (i-FAB 2021), organized by the Brazilian Society of Biomechanics, in conjunction with the i-FAB steering Committee, Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo, Laboratory Biomechanics of Human Movement and Posture and by the Federal University of São Carlos.

The i-FAB 2021 was a four-day scientific program with a multidisciplinary virtual scientific agenda and full of presentations with international and national guests and speakers. The congress took place online for the first time in its 7th edition, and its program consisted of 5 international lectures, 2 special sessions on Diabetic Foot and Weight-Bearing CT, 18 oral sessions with 112 scientific papers, and a poster session with 56 works that were available throughout the event. The focus of the presentations were topics related to Footwear / Orthotics, Sports, Physiotherapy / Rehabilitation, Clinical Biomechanics, Foot-Ankle Modeling, Orthopedics, and Surgery.

The keynotes were from Madhusudhan Venkadesan (Yale University, USA) about "Evolution of Human Foot and It's Relation to Walk and Running Gait," Irene Davis (Harvard Medical School, USA) about "The Foot Core Paradigm:  Let's Think Differently about the Foot," Michael Rainbow (Queen's University, Canadá) about "Investigation of Human Foot Function Using Approaches in Imaging and Musculoskeletal Modeling," Toni Arndt (Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, President of the ISB) about "What's happening in my Achilles tendon? The effects of running in different footwear", Cesar de Cesar Netto (University of Iowa, USA), about "The Collapsing Foot: Challenges in Diagnosis & Treatment & The Role of the Weight-Bearing CT."

The congress featured two pre-congress activities on April 11: the ISB MOTOR CONTROL TECHNICAL GROUP SYMPOSIUM, which included internationally renowned speakers that presented their work on motor control principles and approaches focusing on the biomechanics of the foot and ankle for a variety of applications, including sports medicine, rehabilitation, kinesiology, modeling and more. And a Short Course about GAIT RETRAINING FOR RUNNING INJURIES: FOCUS ON THE FOOT by Professor Irene Davis from Harvard Medical School.

The congress brought together approximately 650 delegates from 37 countries, which was a record compared to previous editions.

To expand international and national dissemination among those interested in the areas of Biomechanics, orthopedics, foot-ankle biomechanics, we rely on the partnership of scientific and professional societies that have many members in their community: AOFAS, ISB, FSB, ABTEPE, SBOT.

For the online event, an exclusive interactive platform was developed for i-FAB 2021 (https://ifab2021.neopix.online/en/login) in which participants could browse between sessions, interact with speakers, sponsors, and attendees via chat, audio, and email with each other, access posters, view the entire congress schedule and receive notifications in real-time.

The event promoted an excellent interface with professionals in the biomechanics of the foot and ankle, orthopedics, and rehabilitation, including academics, physicians, podiatrists, surgeons, engineers, physical education professionals, physiotherapists, and other health professionals, as well as professionals related to the footwear, insoles/orthotics, and surgical equipment. All professionals and students directly or indirectly involved in the topics contributed to the depth of the discussions during the congress. 

The event also distributed two awards for the best papers presented orally.

The entire program will be available for 90 days on demand to those registered for the congress, and the Book of Abstracts is available on the I-FAB 2021 website (https://www.i-fab2021.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04 /ifab2021_bookabstracts_site.pdf) and on the website of the Brazilian Society of Biomechanics (https://bsb.org.br/).

The i-Fab 2021 was a great opportunity to develop a truly multidisciplinary approach to address the challenges that the experimental and computational biomechanics of the foot-ankle represents - FABMAN - Foot and Ankle Biomechanics Multidisciplinary ActioN!

We believe that I-FAB 2021 was a highly successful event and look forward to the next I-FAB 2023 in France.

3DAHM Technical Group

The 3DAHM 2021 Symposium (held online) has been successfully completed on May 28, 2021. First of all, thank you very much to all the participants and staff. This was the first online symposium in the history of 3DAHM. I heard that there were 67 presentations from 13 countries and more than 150 researchers all over the world participated and spent at least 17.5 hours engaging with the meeting. The baton of the 3DAHM has been passed on to the Tokyo Symposium in 2022. I look forward to seeing you all in Tokyo next year!!

   Yoshiyuki Kobayashi  

Motor Control Technical Group

We are pleased to remind of our upcoming symposia planned for 2021:

Symposium on Motor Control in Biomechanics at ISB 2021

When: July 25^th-29^th, 2021
Where: ISB 2021 Meeting, virtual conference
Info and Registration: Attendance is free to ISB participants. Please register here.

Schedule:

• Five sessions on motor controls
• Debate on muscle force sharing

Speakers will include:

• Ton van den Bogert, Cleveland State University (USA)
• Friedl de Groote, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)
• Walter Herzog, University of Calgary (Canada)

More info at: https://mcg.isbweb.org/isb-2021.html

Symposium on Motor Control in Biomechanics at the Brazilian Congress of Biomechanics 2021

When: Sept 13^th-17^th, 2021
Where: CBB 2021 Meeting, virtual conference
Info and Registration: Attendance is free to ISB participants. Please register here.

Speakers will include:

• Matt Jordan, University of Calgary (Canada)
• Daniela Vaz, Federal University of Minas Gerais – UFMG (Brazil)
• Lilian Teresa Bucken Gobbi, São Paulo State University (Brazil)
• Jill L McNitt-Gray, University of Southern California (USA)
• Michael Hiley, Loughborough University (UK)

More info at: https://mcg.isbweb.org/cbb-2021.html

We would also like to thank all of the attendees to our past meeting at the 2021 iFAB Congress, which was held on Sunday April 11^th, 2021. See flyer here: https://mcg.isbweb.org/download/2021-iFAB.pdf

We look forward to meeting again, whether in person or virtually, to talk about Motor Control in various areas and applications of Biomechanics.  Stay well and safe!

ISB Technical Group in Motor Control