International Shoulder Group

The official website of the 2008 meeting of the International Shoulder Group is now online and can be found at http://www.inail-starter.org/ISG2008.html.

The meeting will stress the key-role of biomechanics (musculo-skeletal modelling, motion analysis, motor-control modelling, …) in answering open problems concerning the shoulder and the upper-limb in medicine, ergonomics, and sport. The meeting will take place in Bologna, Italy from 10 - 13 July 2008.

Note that important dates for the meeting are:

• Deadline for abstracts: 14th January, 2008
• Notification of acceptance: 20th February, 2008
• Early registration: before 31st March, 2008

There will be two ISG sessions organised by DirkJan Veeger on upper extremity on the first morning (Monday, July 2nd) of the upcoming International Society of Biomechanics conference in Taiwan. The programs are as follows:

Upper Extremity 1: Models
Stuart P. Marsden Musculotendon wrapping: a novel approach
Edward Chadwick Dynamic arm simulator: a real-time model of the upper limb
Dimitra Blana Feedback control for a high level upper extremity neuroprosthesis
John Rasmussen Comparison of a musculoskeletal shoulder model with in-vivo joint forces
S. Martelli Scaling of a shoulder musculoskeletal model to individual subject data
Katherine Holzbaur Changes in brachioradialis muscle volume and length with spinal cord injury

Upper Extremity 2: Measurement and Control
Jurriaan H. de Groot ADL capability and compensatory motions for limited elbow angles
Frans Steenbrink Glenohumeral stability compensating muscle forces in cuff tears
Peter Westerhoff In vivo measurement of shoulder joint loads during activities of daily living
Pietro Garofalo Inter-joint coordination patterns of able-bodied subjects for the analysis of compensatory strategies in patients with shoulder impairments
Kamiar Aminian Quantifying dominant upper-limb movement in healthy and painful shoulders
Andreas Kontaxis Kinematics performance on activities of daily living after reverse shoulder joint replacement

In addition to this, there will be many other sessions on upper limb biomechanics of interest to ISG members. The full program can be found at the conference website: http://www.isb2007.org/.

The possibility has arisen of holding the 2nd Summer School in Advanced Technologies for Neuro-Motor Assessment and Rehabilitation immediately following the ISG meeting in July 2008. The school is organized by Prof. Lorenzo Chiari (University of Bologna) in a charming location in the hills surrounding Bologna. The first school (held last June) was really successful and "international" (see the attached leaflet). The main topics were: portable sensors and systems, wireless communications, biofeedback devices, virtual reality-based systems and telerehabilitation. In this 2nd school one sure change will be to have more free time to let participants visit Bologna and surroundings.

Before deciding on the exact dates, Prof. Chiari was wondering how many of us would be interested in participating in the event. Could you please email Andrea Cutti (isg2008@inail-starter.org) if you think you would be interested in attending the school? The provisional dates are:

• ESB meeting: 6th-9th July;
• ISG meeting: registration desk on 10th afternoon and sessions on 11th-12th;
• Summer School: 14th-19th July.

Posted on behalf of Andrea Cutti:

Following the decision of the Board, it is a great pleasure for me to announce that the next meeting of the ISG will be held in Bologna (Italy), hosted by the Motion Analysis Laboratory of the INAIL Prosthesis Centre, in the framework of the StartER project.

The meeting will last two days and it is preliminarily scheduled for the first half of July 2008. The specific date will be chosen in order to: 1) easily combine the participation to the meeting with the participation to the meeting of the European Society of Biomechanics (6-9 July, Lucerne, Switzerland); 2) to continue the visit to Italy after the two days of work. To this regard, an original program is under development for the accompanying persons while staying in Bologna.

Special registration fees will be reserved for ISB members and students. In order to have all you coming to Bologna hosted in the same hotel where we are organizing the conference (Bologna downtown), discounted rates for rooms will be available and even cheaper for students.

With the help of the ISG Board it is our intention to have a selection of abstracts published in an international journal. Further details will follow in the next few months on this web-site. If you want to stay up-to-date, send an email to isg2008@inail-starter.org.

Useful links:

Bologna: http://iat.comune.bologna.it/IAT/IAT.nsf/HomePageE?openpage
StartER Project: http://www.starter-project.com
ESB meeting: http://www.esb2008.org

Andrea Giovanni Cutti
INAIL Prosthesis Centre
agcutti@inail-starter.org

The ISB has invited me to organise a special topic on the Upper Extremity for ISB 2007. A topic can consist of maximally four sessions of up to six papers each. Deadline for submission for the topic and sessions is 15-2-2007. I have not yet decided yet on the specific topic and separate sessions. I am considering the topic "Upper extremity: measurements, models and motor control".

Should you want to go to Taipei and also would like to participate in a session, could you please let me know and possibly inform me on what you are considering for presentation?

DirkJan