Allometric control, inverse power laws and human gait (Q1587144)

This paper deals with the correlations arising in the fluctuations in human gait. The authors define here the gait cycle (stride interval) using the extension of the knee as the stride interval indicator, and the time between successive maximal positive extensions of the same knee define the stride interval. The authors determine the long-time correlation properties of the interstride interval time series, knowing sufficiently well that the correlation between adjacent time intervals is greater than between more distant intervals. The longtime correlations are interpreted in terms of a scaling in the fluctuations indicating an allometric control process. The scaling presented in this paper is completely different from the correlations that are observed when there is a seasonal or some other periodicity in the data. These latter long-time correlations do not scale the time series, they merely move it up and down and subsequently can be removed just as one does with a trend.