In a first-of-its kind collaboration, Griffith University researchers alongside 42 scholars from 22 universities and partner organisations from around the world, have set an ambitious task to weave together interdisciplinary scientific research, local community and Indigenous knowledges to truly understand our human story.
Local and international researchers gathered for the workshops.
Hosted by Griffith University at a four-day workshop in Brisbane, Queensland, nine Australian universities connected with international guests from:
The Smithsonian Institution
The Saudi Heritage Commission
The National Museums of Kenya
The Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
KAUST
The University of Cape Town
The Bandung Institute of Technology
The Spanish National Research Centre for Human Evolution
The University of Sri Jayewardenepura.
ARCHE Director Prof Michael Petraglia.
The workshop also provided participants with exclusive access to the Queensland Museum‘s collections, offering a rare behind-the-scenes look at its First Nations Collection.
The event fostered deeper connections between human evolution specialists from around the globe, and promoted the work of public museums in supporting scientific and cultural knowledge.
Kabi Kabi/Waradjuri artist Dr Bianca Beetson gives insights into the Queensland Museum collections.
“To be able to explore the role of our museums, like the Queensland Museum, in their commitment to scientific excellence and celebration of culture with so many bright minds in international archaeology and anthropology research in the one place is a real honour and a very unique opportunity,” Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution Director Professor Michael Petraglia said.
“These workshops represent the first step in our ambitious Griffith-led Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence bid to develop this first-of its-kind collaboration, titled ‘Human Origins and Our Future’.
Researchers learn about the museum’s insect collection.
“Central to the vision, we seek to decolonise human origins research by integrating Indigenous, Global South, and other diverse perspectives, thereby enriching the study of our species.
“By integrating cutting-edge scientific methodologies with innovative questions and historical frameworks, the Centre seeks to unearth fundamental discoveries about our species’ environmental, biological, and cultural history.
“The Human Origins and Our Future bid is a testament to research excellence at Griffith and is a significant step towards fostering a deeper understanding of our origins, our global spread, and our place in an increasingly fragile world.”
In calling for a principles-based Commonwealth whistleblower protection regime, Griffith University Integrity and Transparency experts have provided recommendations for crucial changes needed to reinforce the Public Interest Disclosure (PID) ACT.
Griffith School of Government & International Relations Professor A J Brown.
Griffith Public Policy and Law Professor AJ Brown said no employee should be left worse off for blowing the whistle.
“Current laws are largely dysfunctional and under-implemented because they contain inconsistencies which make protections difficult to enforce,” Professor Brown said.
“Detriment to whistleblowers from ‘reprisal’ continued to go unremedied in the public and private sectors, even in deserving cases.
“The definition of ‘reprisal’ in the PID Act fails to account for ‘collateral damage’, which includes a wide range of harms suffered by whistleblowers.
“Collateral damage occurring as a result of the whistleblowing process includes unmanaged stress, lost time, ostracism, impacted performance and alienation.”
Though legal protections were put in place to protect against reprisal, no known criminal prosecutions have been initiated under the PID Act, said Research Fellow Jane Olsen.
“This is because prosecution requires an almost impossible level of intent and evidence to conclude any harm suffered by whistleblowers constitutes ‘reprisal’,” Ms Olsen said.
“The primary purpose of the PID Act is to provide whistleblower safety, support and welfare and it’s imperative these obligations are not only retained but made clearer and more logical in the Act.
“Nationally, agencies should be liable for damages if they fail to comply with their obligation to take proactive steps to minimise risks to whistleblowers.
“Basic obligations need to be understood and appreciated by anyone in an agency, including all managers and potential whistleblowers, not simply those with technical administrative responsibilities.”
The submission stated managers and staff in workplaces should be educated to understand how to behave when public interest concerns were raised.
Examples of this included the provision of appropriate support to employees who spoke up and making sure employees were able to continue their careers.
“A simple failure to ‘stand up’ for employees who report, in complex workplace situations, can be enough to lead to impacts such as unjustified and unfair resignations or terminations, environments of conflict and mistrust, and these impacts take an irreparable toll on whistleblowers,” Professor Brown said.
“We need to create a safe culture for raising concerns, preventing any harm to whistleblowers and providing a legal remedy if any detriment should occur.”
Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University (QCGU) alumni Shubshri Kandiah and Jackson Head are ready for you to be their guest, as Disney’s Beauty and the Beast comes to QPAC this February.
Having just completed a successful season at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre, the enchanting stage show will call QPAC’s Lyric Theatre home until April before heading back down south to Melbourne.
Ms Kandiah leads the cast as the beautiful Belle, while Mr Head plays formidable villain Gaston.
Growing up in Perth, Ms Kandiah took dancing and singing classes as a child before enrolling in a teaching degree.
When she was accepted into the Bachelor of Musical Theatre at QCGU in 2015 though, she promptly packed her bags and moved to Queensland to chase her dream.
Shubshri Kandiah and Jackon Head as Belle and Gaston in Beauty and the Beast. Image: Beauty and the Beast Musical Australia on Facebook.
“I had the best time in Queensland,” Ms Kandiah said.
“I had amazing teachers and I had experiences I don’t think I would have had on the west coast.”
Having also played Jasmine in Walt Disney’s Aladdin in 2019, and Ella in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella with Opera Australia in 2022-2023, Ms Kandiah is no stranger to playing the princess, although she remains hardworking, humble, and happy to play any role.
Also holding a Bachelor of Musical Theatre from QCGU, long-time local Jackson Head was born into a musical family, finding joy in exploring music from a very young age.
Since graduating in 2019, he’s had the privilege of playing Jean Valjean in ‘Les Misérables’, Billy Bigelow in ‘Carousel’, and Lounge Singer in ‘Dogfight’.
He’s also performed as a featured soloist in Broadway On Screen with the Queensland Pops Orchestra, and as a member of The Ten Tenors in their Australian tour of The Highway Men, but has lately been enjoying the cheeky, suave character of Gaston.
“I remember being lost for words when I got that call that I was in the show,” Mr Head said.
“Performing in a Disney production has always been a dream of mine, so it was an incredible honour to find out it was becoming a reality.”
Based on the 1991 animated film, the original production of Beauty and the Beast played for more than 13 years on Broadway, remaining to this day one of the top 10 longest-running shows in Broadway history, touring to 37 countries worldwide.
Brisbane audiences are in for a magical ride, with the show re-imagined by members of the original creative team and featuring the nostalgic and spellbinding songs of Alan Menken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice including Belle, Gaston, Human Again and Be Our Guest… and of course a healthy serving of fresh, home-grown talent.
Pro Vice Chancellor (Business) Professor Caitlin Byrne
Griffith University is partnering with renowned Australian business leader Marcus Blackmore AM with his Blackmore Family Foundation providing a $6.3 million philanthropic gift to pave the way for world-class business leadership in Australia.
The university has embarked on its first ever comprehensive philanthropy campaign and is already halfway towards reaching its goal of raising $125 million.
The Blackmore Family Foundation’s investment will establish the Blackmore Chair within Griffith Business School, and create the first three Blackmore Leadership Summits, the first set to commence in 2025.
The Blackmore Chair will play a critical role in harnessing new knowledge and thinking about innovative business leadership in Australia and the Asia-Pacific, and in doing so, will transform Griffith’s engagement with the scholarship and practice of business leadership.
The Blackmore Leadership Summit will see participants be part of an exclusive community of leadership practice so they can be inspired by the learnings of Australia’s most successful business leaders.
Griffith’s Pro Vice Chancellor (Business), Professor Caitlin Byrne, said the partnership with the Blackmore Family Foundation represents a shared commitment to innovative business education and authentic, values-driven leadership.
“This partnership builds on our ambition to foster business leadership that enables a more prosperous, equitable and sustainable future,” Professor Byrne said.
“The summit will create a community of business executives, entrepreneurs and innovators with shared aspirations of leadership excellence for positive impact.”
Blackmore Family Foundation Co-Founder, Marcus Blackmore, said he was impressed with the work being achieved by Professor Byrne and Griffith’s MBA Director Professor Stephanie Schleimer.
“As someone who grew up and went to school in Brisbane, I was keen to invest in my local community, in particular, on building a successful business,” Mr Blackmore said.
“I can also pass on how to stuff it up, but the reality is that you learn from your mistakes in life more than your successes.
“Education is terribly important, and with the world moving on, business needs to move with it so this partnership with Griffith University will help steer our future business leaders in the right direction.”
Blackmore Family Foundation Co-Founder, Caroline Furlong, said the Blackmore Chair and Blackmore Leadership Summit encompassed shared values of business and helping to develop the skills of young people.
“We really want to train and educate the future leaders of Australia to have a more holistic approach to business management, which is how Blackmores thrived,” said Ms Furlong.
“It’s not just about profit but encompassing people and the right way to do things, to treat the community and people with respect and look at the business model from a different point of view.”
The Blackmore Chair is the first endowed chair to be funded by philanthropy and reinforces Griffith Business School’s credentials as one of Australia’s leading schools, ranked number one for the fourth year in a row by the Top 40 Corporate Knights’ 2023 Better World MBA ranking.
For the last couple of years, it seems we’ve hit never-seen-before peaks of attention across the internet devoted to Taylor Swift and her music, personal life, and everything else in between. Now the discussions around Swift and her music have popped up in academic circles. Recently, highly regarded universities such as Harvard, Stanford, NYU, and UT Austin (among others) have offered university subjects based on the singer. In 2024 academics from across the world are converging on Melbourne, Australia for a conference entirely devoted to the research and study of Taylor Swift.
So, you might ask: What does the study of Taylor Swift actually look like? In the study of music, society, popular culture you might expect the field to be solely the domain of sociologists, historians, philosophers, psychologists and law researchers, and of course music academics. As an applied mathematics and science academic at Griffith University, I found myself wondering (and wanting to challenge myself to come up with an answer): Where would maths fit in with this Taylor-Swift-ology? What could maths techniques bring to the table for studying the music of Taylor Swift?
Insights from mathematical analysis
One option we can explore comes from a field called information theory, where folks try to study the ways and methods of communication in one form or another. In particular, we can try to look at the words found in song lyrics and then to measure what words occur, and their frequency. We can use a formula to calculate a measurement of each song called the “entropy” of a text, in this case a song’s lyrics, given the probabilities, p, of each word occurring in a song’s lyrics.
This measure of word entropy can be thought of as a way to measure the amount of information content within a text. A very repetitive text would have a lower score, while a text with a wide vocabulary often has a higher score. Some people also describe the entropy score as a measure of the diversity, the variability, or sometimes the “surprise” in a text. As an introduction to this idea, we could check out the Billboard Hot 100 songs of each year from 1965-2015 and what we see is a graph like that below. Each song is represented by a pale blue dot – the darker the blue the more dots there are packed together.
Freestyling to the fore
As time goes on, we can use the red line to show the average lyrical diversity of songs, which seems to increase – with a surge around 1980 onwards with some of the high scores coming from tracks by Kool & the Gang and Run DMC. The notable stack of points around the year 2000 that uplift the yearly average are from artists like Eminem, Jay-Z, and OutKast among others. The mathematics is showing the popularisation and widespread adoption of hip-hop and rap music!
If we now apply this formula to the lyrics of Taylor Swift’s discography we can produce a graph like the one shown below. Each dot point represents a song on an album. The data for this was surprisingly easy to find, as an academic has kindly compiled an easy-to-use database.
Taylor Swift’s lyrical diversity to date
Entropy by eras
For this example, the actual numbers of the score aren’t so much what matters. For convenience we have dropped in a green line showing the average entropy score for each album. What is interesting is to consider is how the general trend changes over time and in the context of how Taylor Swift’s music genres change, as well as her campaigns for ownership and self-determination of her creative output. For each album, if we consider the song-writing credits on each song, we read that the bulk of her early songs were completely written solo, or with the assistance of one main collaborator. Indeed, the Speak Now album was entirely written by her alone. This lyrical pattern, or the habits or techniques naturally occurring in lyrics that are written primarily by one author have previously been proposed as a way to identify songwriters uniquely – think of it like a signature or fingerprint of their style. These techniques have even been used as a forensic tool to help decide on song-writing disputes through the courts.
The impact of collaborations
As more pop-focused albums release the song-writing credits on the albums get more complicated. There are fewer completely solo credited songs, along with many producers and co-writers providing input, some tweaks here and there perhaps based on their experience of pop song-writing.
This is also reflected in what the mathematics tells us! As a result of the input of others, and perhaps changing genres, we see a slight decrease in the average entropy scores compared to earlier albums, as well as a much wider spread of scores for albums such as Red and 1989 for example. As you might expect from having many cooks in the song-writing kitchen, the mathematics shows us that there can be a much larger range of values the entropy score might take.
As mentioned previously, it is important to consider what the numbers from formulas appear to tell us with the backdrop of Taylor’s evolution in song-writing ownership and creative direction. Following a period of collaboration and input from many wide-ranging creative influences, the entropy scores in recent years now appear to revert to similar trends and structures found from her earlier albums. While many of these newer songs are indeed co-credited, most are with well-known songwriters such as Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner and when considering the textual structure and mathematical features of word choices appearing through the song lyrics it appears, for the most part, that the trend is reverting to Taylor’s older album structures.
“Following a period of collaboration and input from many wide-ranging creative influences, the entropy scores in recent years now appear to revert to similar trends and structures found from her earlier albums.”
Image by Raph_PH, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
This example highlights an interesting way that maths may be used to study a topic, which at first glance seems it might have absolutely nothing to do with maths.
However, if you can pick some suitable tools and have an open mind, we are able to see a remarkably clear narrative from just one graph in this case of Taylor Swift’s tracks. This approach is a key idea behind what many scientists do when we build a mathematical model: we want to try to capture some elements of interesting scenarios that occur in the real world and have that reflected in the mathematics. I have no doubt there are many other tricky things that could be done to analyse music in new ways.
As a final note, a little piece of trivia: one might be curious what this brief analysis using information theory indicates as the most “lyrically diverse” or “information-rich” song in the Taylor Swift catalogue? Checking the results from the above graph, it might come as no surprise to many avid ‘Swifties’ that they will already know the answer All Too Well!
Article updated 24 April 2024: Following the release of The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD) the new “maximum word entropy” song But Daddy I Love Him knocks off All Too Well.
Author
Dr Nathan Garland is a lecturer in Applied Mathematics and Physics at Griffith University, Australia. Prior to joining Griffith, Nathan was a post-doctoral researcher in the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, USA. His areas of research interest are based around computational modelling of plasmas in various applications, and the integration of high-quality atomic input data into plasma modelling frameworks.
At a time when vaping has become synonymous with trendy designs and a multitude of flavours, the harsh reality often goes unnoticed. Deep within the vapours, a cocktail of more than 200 dangerous chemicals lurks, threatening the respiratory health of those who choose to indulge. From arsenic, a chemical found in rat poison, to acrolein found in weedkiller, and xylene commonly used in paint strippers – these are just a few of the hazardous substances ingested by users every time they take a puff.
Nicotine, the highly addictive component that triggers the release of pleasure-inducing chemicals in the brain, adds another layer of concern. Shockingly, individuals who venture into the world of vaping are three times more likely to transition to smoking traditional cigarettes.
“Deep within the vapours, a cocktail of more than 200 dangerous chemicals lurks, threatening the respiratory health of those who choose to indulge. From arsenic, a chemical found in rat poison, to acrolein found in weedkiller, and xylene commonly used in paint strippers …”
The primary demographic for vaping is young adults aged 18–24, captivated by the allure of chic designs and an overwhelming array of flavours. However, the consequences of this seemingly harmless trend are surfacing as a public health crisis. Evidence suggests that unintentional nicotine dependence is gripping young adults, and many are desperately seeking a way out.
Existing smoking cessation programs have so far proven insufficient, emphasizing the pressing need for targeted vaping cessation support. Yet, the complexities surrounding vaping cessation remain inadequately understood.
To address this gap in knowledge, Griffith University research is co-designing a vaping cessation program tailored to the unique needs of young adults seeking to quit. A national online survey targeting current and former vapers has been meticulously designed to explore their vaping patterns, device preferences, flavour choices, concurrent smoking habits, quit intentions, and attempts. The goal is to understand their experiences and to identify effective strategies.
Survey results revealing
The survey results reveal a disturbing trend – the majority of current vapers indulge in the habit daily, with one in five also supplementing it with traditional cigarette smoking. Two-thirds of participants attempted to quit within the past 12 months, with “going cold turkey” emerging as the most common strategy.
To further enhance the vaping cessation program, a series of co-design workshops to engage vapers and former vapers in a collaborative process. Their insights will help generate innovative ideas for the design of an effective cessation model. Insights garnered from both the survey and co-design workshops will contribute to the development of a comprehensive vaping cessation model.
In the face of an escalating vaping epidemic, understanding the nuances of young adult vaping patterns and cessation intentions is crucial. By co-designing a targeted cessation program, we aim to empower individuals, particularly young adults, to liberate themselves from the shackles of inhaling these perilous and addictive chemicals. Our collective efforts are not only in the pursuit of knowledge but also in crafting a healthier and safer future for the generations to come.
Author
Nicola Rahman is a PhD candidate and social scientist with a special interest in drug and alcohol related health issues. Nicola’s current research is a mixed methods study co-designing a vaping cessation program for young Australian adults, to better support young people wishing to quit.
A new project led by Griffith University is using big data from satellites to assess the impacts of droughts and water extraction on groundwater resources in Australia.
Funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award worth more than $428,000, the project will generate insights into the mechanisms driving changes in groundwater availability and help identify the risks associated with groundwater extraction.
“More than half of the world’s largest aquifers have rapidly declining groundwater storage, jeopardising global food and water security and ecosystems’ sustainability,” said chief investigator Dr Christopher Ndehedehe from the Australian Rivers Institute.
Dr Christopher Ndehedehe from Griffith University’s Australian Rivers Institute.
“The impacts of droughts and water extraction on groundwater resources are currently poorly understood in Australia and difficult to monitor, threatening national water security and drought resilience.”
Dr Ndehedehe’s project will employ unprecedented ways of harnessing big data from satellites to assess groundwater status, improving the capability of water resource management agencies to monitor water availability and sustainably manage these critical resources.
The results of this research will help farmers and communities to reduce adverse outcomes from drought by enabling earlier access to the critical data needed to inform production decisions.
The project will make further use of this data for environmental monitoring, which could be incorporated into existing online water monitoring platforms, generating publicly accessible groundwater information and expanding global markets for Australian satellite-based monitoring.
“For example, excessive groundwater pumping draws down the water table and, under prolonged drought conditions and higher evaporation, groundwater depletion causes wells to run dry because recharge is unable to replace the groundwater as quickly as pumping removes it,” Dr Ndehedehe said.
“This loss in groundwater can affect water-dependent ecosystems, including declines in unique aquatic biodiversity and tree mortality, resulting in the collapse of forests.
“However, our knowledge of groundwater drought and the extent to which it occurs is lacking due to insufficient in-situ data and capacity to quantify and predict changes in water storage through space and time.”
Satellites like the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) has enabled the monitoring of freshwater changes, including groundwater. But how well do they compare with monitoring of groundwater levels from bores, and can this technology be established as a foundation for water resources planning and accounting in Australia?
This project is an important opportunity to evaluate the use of GRACE satellite data as an independent line of evidence to understand the influence of climate variability and water extraction on groundwater availability. A key goal is to develop a machine learning technique that combines both big satellite data and in-field measurements/observations of rainfall, temperature, etc to identify areas where groundwater resources are affected by human water extraction or drought.
“With access to big data and computational infrastructure, it is possible to quantify groundwater withdrawals by incorporating climate data and satellite observations of evapotranspiration, surface water, and landcover change in a machine learning model,” Dr Ndehedehe said.
“This should overcome the challenges and large degree of uncertainty associated with numerical models and difficulty in applying them over sizeable areas.
“This research will overcome the key impediment associated with quantifying groundwater use in Australia and provide a reliable groundwater withdrawal monitoring technique, which can be incorporated into national groundwater information systems to support drought policy and the strategic management of freshwater in water-stressed agricultural areas.”
The project will provide a new national capability to assess and monitor groundwater resources from space, providing data for government, farmers, communities and traditional owners to better prepared for future droughts, increase disaster preparedness and sustainably manage groundwater resources in a changing climate.
Key findings and outcomes from the project include the development of a novel machine learning framework to downscale the coarse spatial resolution of GRACE data, making it more detailed so it can be used for the management of water resources on local scale.
Gold Coast-based paramedics Steffan Patron, Garry Harris and Steve Strom have united with ambulance staff in Mongolia as part of an ongoing Griffith University-led project to enhance emergency medical services (EMS) and disaster capacity.
The team of Griffith health experts joined five paramedics from Australia, Papua New Guinea, the United States and Canada at the EMS training headquarters in Ulaan Baatar, delivering prehospital care training for 70 doctors, nurses and firefighters.
Gold Coast paramedics are helping to develop the skills of Mongolia’s medical frontline.
Central to their most recent visit was the demonstration and delivery of high-performance CPR, paramedics volunteering two weeks of their time, skills and experience to engage local practitioners.
“They wanted to learn as much as possible and really appreciated the skills of the Griffith University team, made up of five different paramedic services, who all shared similar life-saving techniques,” he said.
Funded by the World Health Organisation, Griffith’s Roadside to Nationwide Mongolian EMS and Disasters project has been operating since 2017, seeking to address the country’s limited access to resources, funding and training in emergency medicine.
Previous visits to the Mongolian capital revealed parallels between ambulance callouts in Australia, such as scenes of fatal heart attacks, traumatic roadside incidents and distressed babies.
The noticeable difference, however, was the experience of first responders and the equipment available to them.
Mongolian paramedics training in high performance CPR.
Clinical Director Duncan McConnell, who holds more than 27 years of paramedic experience, said the train-the-trainer project would build the skills of doctors across Mongolia.
“Despite the challenges, our Mongolian colleagues are very dedicated to learning and improving their EMS capacity so more lives can be saved,” he said.
This year, the visiting paramedic team were faced with a unique challenge of their own: retrieving and treating patients for an outdoor exercise in minus 30 degrees.
Freezing conditions and frostbite took on a new meaning for the Gold Coast crew who had arrived from plus 30 degrees.
The EMS project is part of Griffith’s commitment to social justice, supported by evidence-based research that recognises the country’s context and available means.
“Our enduring goal is to implement effective strategies to improve EMS treatment and response times within Mongolia’s existing resources,” Dr McLean said.
“Simply introducing systems from Australia or Canada is not feasible due to high costs and resource requirements.”
“Our aim is to ensure Mongolia has a sustainable EMS within its own resources and context.”
Shining a spotlight on the cultural values of the top 100 Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) companies, a Griffith University report examines how Australian companies say they intend to behave.
Shaping Australian culture and identity, and corporate values are a commitment made by companies to its stakeholders as an indication of how it promises to behave and operate.
Stating corporate values is a common practice and the study found only three per cent of the sample had not made their values publicly available.
Professor of Strategy and Sustainability Nick Barter.
Professor of Strategy and Sustainability, Nick Barter from the Department of Business Strategy and Innovation said 90 per cent of Australian companies claimed at least one of six popular values: collaboration, integrity, excellence, respect, creativity/ innovation and empathy.
“The report shows the values of ASX companies are similar as if they are following a similar recipe,” Professor Barter said.
“Australian companies are key enablers of the change needed to help Australia face unprecedented challenges such as the transition to a low-carbon economy, so how they act and the decisions they make are imperative to our future.
“A signal from the data shows more sustainable companies may place greater emphasis on the values of courage, responsibility, simplicity, respect, and transparency.
Griffith Business School Professor of Economics Chris Fleming
“Given the intergenerational challenge of transition, it might also be expected that values of care, long-term thinking, and thinking differently would be effective and more popular, however they are not.”
Griffith Business School Professor of Economics Chris Fleming said the four least popular values were humility, diligence, relationship, and generosity.
“Companies with the highest Environmental Social Governance (ESG) scores included values of courage, responsibility, simplicity, respect and transparency, but strangely, these values are also among the least popular,” Professor Fleming said.
“Australian company values are generally no different to others around the world and this leads us to question whether they should break the mould to lead the way toward a successful transition that is more equitable, sustainable and prosperous.”
An ARC-funded research collaboration between Griffith University and The University of Queensland is reshaping our understanding of human biomechanics, specifically through the interplay of foot form and function.
Dr Robert Schuster is a Research Fellow at the School of Health Sciences and Social Work.
Dr Schuster said the long-held idea that the foot is a stiff structure is limiting in its scope.
“As we walk and run, we use our foot to push off the ground, and there’s been this assumption that to do that effectively without wasting a lot of energy, the foot is very rigid, and doesn’t move a lot,” he said.
“But the foot has 33 joints, it’s a very complex structure.”
Illustration shows how the team collected 3D motion capture and ground reaction force data during downhill running
Using the data of 100 healthy participants aged 18-40, collected using novel measurement and analysis techniques that defy ‘standard’ foot measures used in many practises, the team not only confirmed how different our feet are, but also developed a shape-function model (SFM).
This SFM evolved from statistics identifying patterns in the combined shape and function data without making any prior assumptions about how they might relate to each other.
The model proved remarkably accurate in predicting how the joints of a novel foot move and the forces they experience, based solely on its shape.
Dr Schuster said by taking a more holistic approach and dramatically expanding typical sample size for the study, researchers were able to better understand shape variability and the intricate dance of joint mechanics in motion.
“Whether it was a high arch, stiff foot, low arch, or more compliant foot, we did see some relationship between type and function, but those relationships only account for a very small percentage of what’s going on in the foot,” he said.
“What people often do is look for clues in the way something looks, a biological structure like our foot or hand, to understand what it’s good at doing or what injuries you might be prone to.
“For instance, when you think of a marathon athlete, the typical body shape that comes to mind is a short, very light build, with very thin limbs.
“Whereas if you think of a sprinter, you’d imagine a more muscular type, and that’s the idea behind the form and function relationship.
“When you apply this to the foot, it would suggest a flat foot does one thing and a foot with a high arch does another, but the foot is probably one of the most variable structures in our body.”
The study, involving 3D scanning and walking, and running trials, determined the foot’s longitudinal and transverse arches, relative proportions and toe shape are connected to changes in ankle and foot joint mechanics, but do not solely predict movement potential due to the multiple degrees of freedom in the foot.
“What this study shows is our feet can look very different, but they can still perform the exact same function because how they perform that function differs,” Dr Schuster said.
“For example, people might say if your foot is flat then you’re in trouble or limited as to what it can do, but we have high performing athletes with flat feet.
“Just because you have a certain foot shape doesn’t mean your foot has to function in a certain way, because it can compensate at different joints.
“Having a flat foot doesn’t mean you’re going to develop plantar fasciitis necessarily, because you have so many muscles and joints that can make up for that structure.”
An illustration of how the team collected 3D foot scans while the foot being scanned was supporting different amounts of weight.
Global sports brand ASICS supported the study by providing complimentary footwear to all 100 participants.
Dr Schuster said such findings and the effective SFM could be harnessed by sportswear brands to deliver a more beneficial, bespoke fitting service.
“When you walk into a shop, most people prioritise fit because you want to be comfortable in the shoe, but there’s potential to meet and improve both fit and function,” he said.
“Somebody running a marathon might be recommended super thick foam under the shoes, but that might not be good for everybody.
“Just as our feet are different, we might need shoes with different density or stiffness in the foam, for the same function.”
Beyond footwear design, the research brings new value to orthopaedics, sports science, biomechanics and evolutionary biology.
