Footwear bio-modelling: An industrial approach

There is a growing need within the footwear sector to customise the design of the last from which a specific footwear style is to be produced. This customisation is necessary for user comfort and health reasons, as the user needs to wear a suitable shoe. For this purpose, a relationship must be established between the user foot and the last with which the style will be made; up until now, no model has existed that integrates both elements. On the one hand, traditional customised footwear manufacturing techniques are based on purely artisanal procedures which make the process arduous and complex; on the other hand, geometric models proposed by different authors present the impossibility of implementing them in an industrial environment with limited resources for the acquisition of morphometric and structural data for the foot, apart from the fact that they do not prove to be sufficiently accurate given the non-similarity of the foot and last. In this paper, two interrelated geometric models are defined, the first, a bio-deformable foot model and the second, a deformable last model. The experiments completed show the goodness of the model, with it obtaining satisfactory results in terms of comfort, efficiency and precision, which make it viable for use in the sector.

A new boundary-based morphological model

Mathematical morphology addresses the problem of describing shapes in an n-dimensional space using the concepts of set theory. A series of standardized morphological operations are defined, and they are applied to the shapes to transform them using another shape called the structuring element. In an industrial environment, the process of manufacturing a piece is based on the manipulation of a primitive object via contact with a tool that transforms the object progressively to obtain the desired design. The analogy with the morphological operation of erosion is obvious. Nevertheless, few references about the relation between the morphological operations and the process of design and manufacturing can be found. The non-deterministic nature of classic mathematical morphology makes it very difficult to adapt their basic operations to the dynamics of concepts such as the ordered trajectory. A new geometric model is presented, inspired by the classic morphological paradigm, which can define objects and apply morphological operations that transform these objects. The model specializes in classic morphological operations, providing them with the determinism inherent in dynamic processes that require an order of application, as is the case for designing and manufacturing objects in professional computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM) environments. The operators are boundary-based so that only the points in the frontier are handled. As a consequence, the process is more efficient and more suitable for use in CAD/CAM systems.

Differences between the personal, social and emotional profiles of teaching and computer engineering professionals and students

The evidence suggests that emotional intelligence and personality traits are important qualities that workers need in order to successfully exercise a profession. This article assumes that the main purpose of universities is to promote employment by providing an education that facilitates the acquisition of abilities, skills, competencies and values. In this study, the emotional intelligence and personality profiles of two groups of Spanish students studying degrees in two different academic disciplines – computer engineering and teacher training – were analysed and compared. In addition, the skills forming part of the emotional intelligence and personality traits required by professionals (computer engineers and teachers) in their work were studied, and the profiles obtained for the students were compared with those identified by the professionals in each field. Results revealed significant differences between the profiles of the two groups of students, with the teacher training students scoring higher on interpersonal skills; differences were also found between professionals and students for most competencies, with professionals in both fields demanding more competencies that those evidenced by graduates. The implications of these results for the incorporation of generic social, emotional and personal competencies into the university curriculum are discussed.