Emerging smart textiles have enriched a variety of wearable technologies, including fiber optic technology. Optic fibers are widely applied in communication, sensing, and healthcare, and smart textiles enable fiber optic technology to be worn close to soft and curved human body parts for personalized functions. This review briefly introduces wearable fiber optic applications with various functions, including fashion and esthetics, vital signal monitoring, and disease treatment. The main working principles of side emission, wavelength modulation, and intensity modulation are summarized. In addition, textile fabrication techniques, including weaving and knitting, are discussed and illustrated as combination methods of embedding fiber optic technology into textile fabric. In conclusion, the combination of optical fibers and textiles has drawn considerable interest and developed rapidly. This work provides an overview of textile-based wearable fiber optic technology and discusses potential textile fabrication techniques for further improvement of wearable fiber optic applications.

Effective training to improve serve speed is important for competitive tennis players. The purposes of this study were to investigate the effects of anthropometric factors and whole body kinematics of elite players on ball speed and to propose possible training strategies for improving the quality of tennis serves. Body and racket kinematics of tennis serves of 12 male elite Hong Kong players were investigated. The tennis serve was divided into four phases: I) Back-Swing Phase, II) Lead-Leg-Drive Phase, III) Forward-Swing Phase, and IV) Follow-Through Phase. It was shown that racket-side knee range of motion during phases II and III (r=0.705; p<0.05), racket-side knee peak extension velocity during phase II (r=0.751; p<0.01), racket-side hip peak extension velocity during phase II (r=0.657; p<0.05), racket-side shoulder range of motion in the coronal plane during phase III (r=0.616; p<0.05), racket-side elbow peak extension velocity during phase III (r=0.708; p<0.01) and body mass index (r=0.577; p<0.05) were significantly correlated with ball speed. Body mass index and the identified kinematic parameters that were significantly correlated with ball speed could be used as training guidelines for coaches and players to improve serve speed. Players should pay particular attention in training to increasing the extension velocity and range of motion of the identified joints.

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Privacy is often overlooked in Hong Kong nursing homes with the majority of elderly residents living in shared bedrooms of three to five people. Only a few studies have used Bluetooth low energy indoor positioning systems to explore the relationship between privacy and social interaction among elderly residents. The study investigates the social behavioural patterns of elderly residents living in three-bed, four-bed, and five-bed rooms in a nursing home. Location data of 50 residents were used for the identification of mobility and social interaction patterns in relation to different degrees of privacy and tested for statistical significance. Privacy is found to have a weak negative correlation with mobility patterns and social behaviour, implying that the more privacy there is, the less mobility and more formal interaction is found. Residents who had more privacy did not spend more time in social space. Residents living in bedrooms that opened directly onto social space had higher social withdrawal tendencies, indicating the importance of transitional spaces between private and public areas. Friends’ rooms were used extensively by residents who had little privacy, however, the concept of friends’ rooms have rarely been discussed in nursing homes. There is evidence supporting the importance of privacy for social interaction. Future study directions include considering how other design factors, such as configuration and social space diversity, work with privacy to influence social interaction.