Fig 1.
The CFAD was custom-made out of spruce wood.
It consists of solid metal base (A), the wooden pylon, and horizontal swing-like handle. On one side of the handle, an iron weight (1200 g) is placed (B). The weight can be moved along the handle in order to change the required force application. The probe is fixed to the device with an adjustable plastic cluster (C). The positions of the weight corresponding to a desired force levels were determined and regularly checked by applying the load on a digital strain gauge-based scale (D). Ball-bearings (E) were used to connect the pylon with the swing.
Table 1.
Overview of steps undertaken in the experiment.
Fig 2.
Examples of typical region of interest positioning.
Low and high force application conditions resulted in minimal (i.e. visually undetectable) changes in the image (A and B). Images C and D show examples of region of interest positioning on a selected human participant for relaxed and stretched condition, respectively.
Table 2.
Repeatability and reproducibility results for measurements on meat specimens.
Fig 3.
Scatter plots of measurements conducted with custom-made device.
Diagonal line represents a perfect match between two measurements.
Fig 4.
Scatter plots of measurements conducted by human examiners.
Diagonal line represents a perfect match between two measurements.
Fig 5.
Bland-Altman plots of measurements conducted with custom-made device.
Horizontal lines indicate the mean difference between measurements (blue) and 95% confidence intervals (red).
Fig 6.
Bland-Altman plots of measurements conducted by human examiners.
Horizontal lines indicate the mean difference between measurements (blue) and 95% confidence intervals (red).
Table 3.
Repeatability and reproducibility results for measurements on human participants’ hamstring muscles.