The leading athletes in the Valsir Mountain Running World Cup head the stacked fields for the finale of the season taking place this weekend (12-13) in the Lombardy region of Italy in Chiavenna a town steeped in mountain running history On Saturday (12) athletes will contest the final World Cup short uphill race with the 25th edition of Lagunc KM Verticale and the following day the last long race The vertical race starts in Chiavenna and climbs to Lagunc while the Val Bregaglia Trail starts just over the border in Switzerland and finishes in Chiavenna With 100 points on offer for an athlete winning both races, it is a crucial weekend for the World Cup. The current rankings show it’s possible that any one of six men could emerge World Cup champion In the women’s race the World Cup leader Joyce Muthoni Njeru of Kenya spearheads the competition following her double win at Broken Arrow as well as Trofeo Nasego and Smarna Gora just last weekend She has a good buffer between her and Britian’s Scout Adkin with 288 points to Adkin’s 244 but the latter has also had a consistent season with wins at Montemuro Vertical Run and La Montee du Nid d’Aigle plus a second place at Sierre Zinal the third placed runner in the women’s World Cup and just two points separate her and Adkin Susanna Saapunki is currently in fifth place after strong performances at Montemuro Vertical and Trofeo Nasego and Smarna Gora There’s little doubt she will overtake Gloria Chebet who is currently in fourth and does not appear to be racing here and she will be one to watch in both races Some strong runners are travelling from the US which will add another dimension to the competition who achieved two sixth places at Broken Arrow this year US-based Australian athlete Lara Hamilton will be taking on both races There will also be a formidable Italian contingent who was second in the Val Bregaglia Trail last year and had a strong run at Smarna Gora Camilla Magliano will be doubling up and is always one to watch Other women to look out for include Sara Willhoit who was third at Giir di Mont and is currently seventh in the World Cup standings The men’s line-up is equally strong and it’s very close at the top of the World Cup rankings Kenya’s Patrick Kipngeno leads with 235 points after two wins at Broken Arrow and two at Nasego His compatriot Philemon Ombogo Kiriago is just eight points behind him after an incredibly consistent season including that unforgettable duel with Kilian Jornet at Sierre Zinal Just 11 points behind Kiriago is Josphat Kiprotich who achieved second places at Grossglockner La Montee du Nid d’Aigle and Vertical Nasego All three athletes are entered into both races There’s also another trio of Kenyan athletes in contention for the World Cup Michael Selelo Saoli won Giir di Mont and has had a string of strong results Richard Omaya Atuya has won all but one of the World Cup races he has entered this year – Grossglockner La Montee du Nid d’Aigle and Smarna Gora but two wins this weekend isn’t out of the question based on his season all three runners are entered in both races who won the USA National Running Championship (up and down race) earlier this year who achieved a number of top 10 places in the World Cup last year including a third place at Sky Gran Canaria Tyler McCandless and Andy Wacker will double up There will of course be a number of top Italian runners competing on home turf Henri Aymonod won the vertical race last year He was third at both PizTri Vertical and Vertical Nasego this year Andrea Elia is currently eighth in the World Cup rankings and a strong run here in the vertical race could see him improve on that Alberto Vender could do well in the vertical race and Luciano Rota is one to watch in both Others to keep an eye on include Jacob Adkin who won the vertical race here in 2022 and was second in the European Championships uphill race earlier this year The action starts on Saturday at 9:15am local time with the Lagunc KM Verticale On Sunday Val Bregaglia Trail starts at 9:30am The Lagunc KM Verticale will see runners start at 352m in the historic centre of Chiavenna This vertical kilometre course is about as pure as they come making the profile a perfect sloping line up to the finish in the small mountain village of Lagunc at 1352m Along the way the runners will follow ancient Val Bregaglia Trail begins in Promontogno in Switzerland at 856m following it through stunning woodland tracks over the border into Italy at Castasegna After following the river for a short time the runners pop out at Lago di Villa di Chiavenna before a long gradual climb up to Savogna and a final downhill or flat 7km into the finish at Chiavenna The grand finale of the 2024 Valsir Mountain Running World Cup takes place this weekend in the Lombardy region of Italy in Chiavenna, with Kenyans Joyce Njeru and Patrick Kipngeno favourites for overall glory On Saturday it’s the final short uphill race of the season with the 25th edition of Lagunc KM Verticale and the following day it’s the last long race Chiavenna was the venue for the world’s first official certified vertical kilometre and the Lagunc KM Verticale remains one of the most prestigious VK courses in the world The vertical race starts in Chiavenna at 352m and is about as pure as they come After following the river for a short time the runners pop out at Lago di Villa di Chiavenna before starting a long before beginning the final downhill or flat 7k into the finish at Chiavenna The start lists for both races are stacked and with 100 points on offer for an athlete winning both races this will be a crucial weekend for the World Cup Theoretically it’s possible that any one of six men could emerge World Cup champion In the women’s race the athletes occupying the top three spots in the overall World Cup will be taking on both races Joyce Njeru (Atletico Saluzzo) leads the competition with her double win at Broken Arrow as well as Trofeo Nasego and Smarna Gora just last weekend She has a good buffer between her and Scout Adkin (HOKA EU) with 288 points to Adkin’s 244 but the latter has also had an incredibly consistent season with wins at Montemuro Vertical Run and La Montee du Nid d’Aigle and that unforgettable second place at Sierre Zinal the third placed runner in the women’s World Cup Philaries Jeruto Kisang (Run2gether On Running) has also had an extremely strong season We will see the top six men in the World Cup rankings taking part and it’s very close at the top Patrick Kipngeno (Run2gether On Running) leads with 235 points Can he do his third double of the season here Philemon Ombogo Kiriago (Run2gether On Running) is just eight points behind him after an incredibly consistent season Just 11 points behind Kiriago is Josphat Kiprotich (also Run2gether On Running) La Montee du Nid d’Aigle and Vertical Nasego Could he go one better here and potentially win the World Cup All three of them are entered into both races The action starts on Saturday at 9.15am local time with the Lagunc KM Verticale Then on Sunday Val Bregaglia Trail starts at 9.30am Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience The Michelin Guide’s green stars and the guide’s partnership with illycaffè provide food-loving travellers with information on sustainability by highlighting and recounting the stories of restaurants with a strong eco footprint such as the Lanterna Verde in Villa di Chiavenna Run with passion and enthusiasm by the same family for almost fifty years, this historic Michelin-starred restaurant in Sondrio province not only provides uncompromising quality but is also fully committed to preserving its local environment, making it a more than worthy recipient of its Michelin green star in 2020 The restaurant’s philosophyAccording to chef Roberto Tonola this recognition is the result of a wholehearted and long-term commitment in many different areas Tonola tells us: “Our business is underpinned by a philosophy in which respect for our surroundings is a core value We live in a beautiful area at the foot of the mountains and we enjoy introducing our guests to the flavours of the Val Chiavenna through healthy seasonal cuisine made from local ingredients which are easy to find and therefore always fresh” The chef forages for wild herbs and mushrooms and many of the vegetables he uses are grown in the restaurant’s own kitchen garden: “Another feature of our restaurant which dates from our early days is our trout farm while our dairy products and meat such as our Val Chiavenna pork are sourced directly from small local producers we maximise the use of every ingredient in order to avoid any unnecessary waste”.This young chef’s philosophy and his parents’ successful management of the restaurant are recognised by our inspectors in the Michelin Guide: “The Tonola family has been one of the province’s leading names in gourmet cuisine and friendly service for more than four decades thanks to the strong partnership between Roberto in the kitchen where he skilfully prepares dishes with a modern twist always providing guests with astute wine recommendations” These varied flavours enrich the chef’s dishes in a whole host of imaginative ways how he uses coffee to balance the flavour of game dishes: “I dilute the coffee in the sauce that I serve with the venison The acidic aromas of coffee also help to maintain the fresh flavours of fish – I have marinated trout fillets in coffee with great success; the same can be said of my combination of coffee with sweet vegetables which inspired my beetroot the only limit here is the imagination – coffee works perfectly with ice cream dried and fresh fruit (especially bananas and persimmon) The importance of sustainability for Lanterna Verde The beautifully presented, authentic and flavoursome recipes created with plenty of imagination by the Tonola family come with a careful focus on ecological issues. As well as sourcing carefully selected local ingredients, Lanterna Verde pays very close attention to its use of energy: “Over the years the structural work that we’ve undertaken has allowed us to optimise our spending and reduce our emissions The most important of these projects was the construction of a hydro-electric plant which uses water from our trout farm which enables us to be self-sufficient in energy We then converted the entire kitchen to electric and invested in a pellet-fired heating plant which provides us with our heating and hot water” As well as underpinning an impressive (and encouraging) business model in the long term Lanterna Verde’s circular economy also demonstrates that a reduced environmental footprint need not have a negative financial impact – to the contrary as it can make a restaurant more competitive as well as enhance the quality of its cuisine illycaffè si allea con la Guida MICHELIN per sostenere le Stelle Verdi MICHELIN in Europa e negli Stati Uniti Giornalista dal 2004 con Laurea e Master in Storia e Relazioni Internazionali presso la LSE visita i sette continenti e approfondisce ogni giorno la sua passione per cucina hotellerie di charme e tradizioni del territorio italiano What the MICHELIN Guide Inspectors Saw in 2025 Whether it’s your first time in a fine dining restaurant or your fiftieth these tips from our seasoned MICHELIN Guide Inspectors will help you get it right — your way When you want to dress up and enjoy a night out on the town Bib Gourmand Pierozek brings people together for delicious she has championed America’s farm-to-table movement for 54 years Sustainability is more than a buzzword—it’s a core value embraced by some of North America’s most design-forward hotels Southern England's Dartmoor National Park boasts a unique granite landscape which takes in rocky outcrops ancient forests and globally significant wetlands fauna and historical sites are just waiting to be explored Get away from the big city with these day-long excursions to some of the UK's top destinations This fifth generation family owned Tampa spot celebrates the confluence of culture and cuisine A cozy and delicious “love letter to Florida.” Explore the west coast of Ireland from Kilkee to Muff sustainable stop-offs and plenty of Wild Atlantic Way adventures Experience the west coast of Ireland with The MICHELIN Guide’s scenic route from Cork to Kilkee Download our app to carry The MICHELIN Guide in your pocket and book the world’s best restaurants and hotels on the go Step inside this fabulous Mayfair restaurant where delicious well-sourced ingredients are the cornerstone of the kitchen The MICHELIN Guide has arrived in the Philippines setting its sights on Manila and Environs & Cebu for its highly anticipated 2026 debut With our expert Inspectors already exploring the country’s vibrant dining scene Filipino cuisine is poised to take centre stage on the global culinary map Non-members can add the privileges at checkout through our 30 day free trial By continuing I accept the Terms & Condition and Privacy Policy. I would like to receive Newsletter from MICHELIN Guide Save lists of your favorite restaurants & hotels Run with passion and enthusiasm by the same family for almost fifty years, this historic Michelin-starred restaurant in Sondrio province not only provides uncompromising quality but is also fully committed to preserving its local environment, making it a more than worthy recipient of its Michelin green star in 2020 The restaurant\u2019s philosophyAccording to chef Roberto Tonola Tonola tells us: \u201cOur business is underpinned by a philosophy in which respect for our surroundings is a core value seasonal cuisine made from local ingredients which are easy to find and therefore always fresh\u201d The chef forages for wild herbs and mushrooms and many of the vegetables he uses are grown in the restaurant\u2019s own kitchen garden: \u201cAnother feature of our restaurant which dates from our early days is our trout farm we maximise the use of every ingredient in order to avoid any unnecessary waste\u201d.This young chef\u2019s philosophy and his parents\u2019 successful management of the restaurant are recognised by our inspectors in the Michelin Guide: \u201cThe Tonola family has been one of the province\u2019s leading names in gourmet cuisine and friendly service for more than four decades always providing guests with astute wine recommendations\u201d These varied flavours enrich the chef\u2019s dishes in a whole host of imaginative ways how he uses coffee to balance the flavour of game dishes: \u201cI dilute the coffee in the sauce that I serve with the venison The acidic aromas of coffee also help to maintain the fresh flavours of fish \u2013 I have marinated trout fillets in coffee with great success; the same can be said of my combination of coffee with sweet vegetables which inspired my beetroot the only limit here is the imagination \u2013 coffee works perfectly with ice cream The importance of sustainability for Lanterna Verde The beautifully presented, authentic and flavoursome recipes created with plenty of imagination by the Tonola family come with a careful focus on ecological issues. As well as sourcing carefully selected local ingredients, Lanterna Verde pays very close attention to its use of energy: \u201cOver the years the structural work that we\u2019ve undertaken has allowed us to optimise our spending and reduce our emissions We then converted the entire kitchen to electric and invested in a pellet-fired heating plant which provides us with our heating and hot water\u201d Lanterna Verde\u2019s circular economy also demonstrates that a reduced environmental footprint need not have a negative financial impact \u2013 to the contrary illycaff\u00e8 si allea con la Guida MICHELIN per sostenere le Stelle Verdi MICHELIN in Europa e negli Stati Uniti Via Francigena We inform pilgrims in transit that the crossing of the Chiavenna Ford is currently presenting serious issues due to the heavy rains and floods of the past few weeks Please pay particular attention during the crossing especially considering the weather forecast which predicts more rain Pilgrims who wish to split the stage to avoid the ford can take a bus from Pontenure to reach Fiorenzuola Share this articleand follow us on social media: 👉🏻 Itinerary 👉🏻 Where to sleep 👉🏻 I ❤️ Francigena 👉🏻 The Via by bicycle 👉🏻 Events Calendar The European Association of the Via Francigena unites municipalities and countries crossed by the Via Francigena We’re always on the lookout for new partners who share our values and who want to help us promote sustainable travel across Europe F.A.Q © Associazione Europea delle Vie Francigene | C.F. 91029880340 – P.IVA 02654910344 Powered by ItinerAria Privacy | Cookie Policy  | Legal Notice  © Associazione Europea delle Vie Francigene | C.F Powered by ItinerAria VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A nun who was brutally stabbed in a satanic sacrifice was beatified a martyr June 6 in the northern Italian city where she served Pope Francis commended the beatification of Sister Maria Laura Mainetti a 60-year-old member of the Congregation of the Daughters of the Cross after praying the Angelus the same day with visitors gathered in St “She was killed 21 years ago by three young women influenced by a satanic sect and who loved and forgave those same girls imprisoned by evil leaves us her program for life: do every little thing with faith The beatification ceremony was held in Chiavenna in the Diocese of Como where Sister Mainetti had been serving as a teacher catechist and head of her religious community prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes presided over the beatification ceremony and Mass On the altar was a reliquary holding a rock stained with Blessed Mainetti’s blood; the rock was found where she had been killed The cardinal said the nun prayed to God for the grace of “true charity,” which means loving God more than oneself and loving others as much as oneself she felt called to a religious vocation after a priest told her “You must do something wonderful for other people.” She began teaching in 1960 at elementary schools run by her congregation in different cities in Italy She dedicated her life to helping those excluded by society Her killers were three teenage girls who knew Sister Mainetti from catechism class when they were younger The young women wanted to sacrifice a religious person for Satan because she was slender and easier to attack The three girls had planned to stab her six times each to indicate the biblical “number of the beast” on June 6 The young women were found guilty of murder but they were given reduced sentences because the court determined they were partially insane at the time of the crime They have since been released from prison and given new identities the pope recognized the martyrdom of Sister Mainetti as someone killed “in hatred of the faith.” While a miracle attributed to a candidate’s intercession is not needed for beatification as a martyr Copyright © 2021 Catholic News Service/U.S  Print Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media Catholic Media Assocation Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association The Associated Church Press represents a perfect dialogue between art and nature in Valchiavenna initially a refuge of “recreation and delight,” suffered violent looting soon after the death of the last heir in 1879 Milanese antiquarian Napoleone Brianzi redeemed its past and restored it to its original magnificence The property then passed from hand to hand until 1985 when Maria Eva Sala donated it to the community and the Municipality of Chiavenna The palace enchants visitors with its multi-level garden and exquisite frescoes whose story of Callisto is masterfully painted telling an extraordinary story that transcends the centuries A first Christian church arose in Chiavenna in the 5th century with the organization of parish churches in 973 that a larger and more functional building dedicated to the protomartyr Saint Lawrence was erected The present building retains the old Romanesque-style walls intact although the altar area and aisles were extended in the 18th century painted in 1759 by Filippo Fiori and Giovan Maria Giussani of Como was later partially restored in the 19th century On the exterior facade can be read the year MDXXXVIII (1538) commemorating the reconstruction of the gabled oak roof which was destroyed the previous year in a fire Not to be overlooked is a visit to the baptismal font which is a soapstone monolith whose carved reliefs depict the ceremony of the blessing of water and Baptism during Holy Saturday Also housed in the atmospheric Collegiate Church of San Lorenzo, the Chiavenna Treasure Museum is housed in a complex dating back to the fifth century that features unique architecture was used to mark the cemetery and accommodate processions Inside the museum is a rich collection of sacred vestments and furnishings as well as a valuable musical codex from the 11th century but the main piece is the “Peace of Chiavenna”: an 11th-century evangeliary made of embossed gold pearls and enamels that is a masterpiece of medieval goldsmithing The peace is believed to have been donated by a German or French bishop who visited Chiavenna with Emperor Barbarossa in 1176 to appreciate the details of this intricate masterpiece while now a screen has been placed over the Peace allowing visitors to share the details captured by the lens On the slopes of the mountain complex that marks the upper end of Valchiavenna to the east and the beginning of Val Bregaglia to the south lies the Marmitte dei Giganti Park of great environmental importance that offers extraordinary landscapes thanks to its impressive and fascinating geomorphological features that are the result of glacial action in the Alpine arc owes its name precisely to the geological phenomenon of “potholes of the giants”: deep cylindrical holes dug by the erosive force of water during the last glaciation together with the smooth rocks called “mounded rocks,” constitute a true outdoor natural museum The trail in the park offers the traveler a unique opportunity to explore the geology and nature that characterize this fascinating alpine region A must-see in the discovery of Valchiavenna is the Via Spluga hiking trail which for centuries has linked the two localities of Thusis in Switzerland and Chiavenna in Italy via the Spluga Pass with a total length of 70 km that allows you to discover the history of the place while immersed in unspoiled nature It originated during the first century B.C at the behest of Augustus as a link for transporting goods on the backs of pack animals In Roman times it was also known as the Cunus Aureus because gold was mined along the Alpine arc between the Ligurian side and the Ticino.For centuries this route was also the direct link between Italy and Europe and a great many people have loved and traveled these valleys: from the Roman general Stilicho to Otto 1st of Germany; from Leonardo da Vinci to Erasmus of Rotterdam; from the Wurttembergs to Goethe a symbol of ancient Lombard Romanesque architecture resides on the western shore of Lake Mezzola and is one of the most striking places in the entire province of Sondrio a martyr who was executed at the time of Diocletian and whose relics were found thanks to a dream of Bishop Gualdone in 964 while the outer apse is adorned with three sets of graceful hanging arches which add a touch of elegance to its structure Although only fragments of frescoes resist the wear and tear of time they still tell a story of faith and devotion: a Christ Pantocrator emerges with a book in his left hand on which the inscription “Ego sum via veritas et vita” (I am the way the truth and the life) can be partially discerned two angels with outstretched arms holding red drapes One of the most beloved places in Valchiavenna is definitely the 2,000-meter statue of Our Lady of Europe in Motta In the striking scenery of the mountain peaks the metal statue of the Virgin emerges majestically a work wrapped in sumptuous gold foil that rises 13 meters into the sky Its very placement atop the mountains makes it a place of reflection prayer and inspiration for all who contemplate it loved and celebrated by Giosuè Carducci who spent his summers here between 1888 and 1901 there is a valley with a singular name that refers to a female figure It is the Val di Lei and according to an unfortunate legend the wife of a Roman centurion betrayed her husband while he was traveling and on his return he locked the woman in a cave where he left her to die The old shepherds of the valley tell that ever since when the wind hisses it is the soul of “her” that weeps for her terrible fate is the small power plant museum that explains the history of the valley and the construction of the immense dam a company applied for permits for hydroelectric exploitation in the Ferrera Valley Italy and Switzerland signed an agreement since the dam would be located on the border between the two a curious dividing line was obtained: the artificial lake fed by the Reno di Lei is on Italian territory Campodolcino’s roots probably go back to Roman times when the central core coincided with what for the ancient Romans was Tarvessedo a crucial refreshment point along the Como-Coira road dominion over this territory was a matter of contention became the scene of clashes between Como and of Chur itself During the rule of the Milanese duchy of the Visconti and Sforza families but over time it fell under the protective aegis of the Grisons This historical backdrop helped preserve the unique character of this place nestled among the mountains and even the origin of its distinctive name was intended to evoke the image of a soft and welcoming terrain that has welcomed pilgrims and visitors over the years In love with the valley and especially Campodolcino was The majesty of the Acquafraggia waterfalls impressed many wayfarers who discovered them during his passage through the Ciavenna Valley Leonardo made mention of the Acquafraggia waterfalls describing their visual impact: “Up by the said river (the Mera) one finds chadute of water of 400 fathoms which make a belvedere....” A specially equipped path leads to the top of the falls offering visitors the chance to immerse themselves in the beauty of this natural spectacle Just beyond will be the small settlement dimension of Savogno which lives in harmony with its natural surroundings rustic balcony houses are arranged in a staircase on a slope that immediately becomes very steep and immerses the explorer in a timeless place Did you find any incorrect or incomplete information? Please, let us know HC Chiavenna participates in season 2024-2025: Italy U16, Italian Hockey League – Division I Luleå wins their second title in Sweden, 29 years after the first one. Read more» The Nashville Predators and Pittsburgh Penguins will face off in Stockholm, Sweden, on November 14 and 16, 2025, as part of the NHL Global Series. These games at the renovated Avicii Arena mark the 47th and 48th NHL contests held in ... Read more» Diana Lee: Journalist covering food and lifestyle trends in Italy As a third-generation chef at Lanterna Verde The rustic restaurant in the small town of Villa di Chiavenna north of Lombardy in the province of Sondrio was built by Tonola’s grandfather in 1982 Grandfather Tonola had started a trout farm on the riverbed below which became a kiosk selling stone roasted trout before expanding into what is now the restaurant His uncle and father followed in his grandfather’s footsteps and it is only in recent years that Tonola has picked up the baton of their decades-long legacy hanging around his uncle in the kitchen or the cellar by his sommelier father then running out to play under the sour apple tree out front by the river Mera he picked up his bags and went off to London training at Michelin-starred restaurants that had a similar ethos to his: “I wanted to stay close to something that was more ‘me’ award-winning restaurants whose cuisine was linked to the traditions of the land.” which was first awarded a Michelin star back in 1997 the food has always told the stories of this town that often do not get told otherwise Faithful to the restaurant’s heritage Tonola has an entire degustation menu dedicated to these alpine valleys I have tried to do something more linked to the land and more focused on local produce,” he says He cites as examples some of the dishes on the Valchiavenna menu like the special local salumi that comes from a salumiere who brings it over just for him “it’s not even available on the market anymore which used to be ubiquitous on dinner tables back in the day but can now rarely be found called “Tajadin dulz de Villa”: a hearty serving of tagliatelle pasta made with chestnut flour “This dish has a fascinating story behind it it’s a recipe from a priest from our small local parish,” he says In a town with a population of just over a thousand safeguarding such treasures requires extra devotion Previous Next19Chestnut is a symbol of the town and in general of the Valchiavenna area of the Sondrio province where forests of chestnut trees rise up the mountains beyond its pristine waters filtered down from the snowcapped peaks This dramatic landscape touches the very soul of the chef’s creations “Every season gifts us with different produce and it is an area that changes a lot with the seasons.” He finds everything from wild herbs to local cheeses and game from nature itself or small producers and farmers in the area is the rare black pig of which he speaks enthusiastically: “it’s beautiful because it is a pig that is indigenous to this part of the alps but has fallen out of favour over the years due to its lower yield This young girl has taken a small farm and the pigs are free to roam in the woods!” So it is just when you expect him to be simply old-fashioned He turns tradition on its head with his “come pizzoccheri” (meaning reinventing the area’s favourite plate of buckwheat pasta into a tasting trio with layer-upon-layer of textures He takes care in looking after the restaurant’s rustic wooden structure and stone slab roofing that blends into its mountainous landscape today as it did when his grandfather first built it But behind the scenes it’s a very modern affair that shows his commitment to sustainability: he has implemented an electricity generator which has made Lanterna Verde 100% self-sufficient The winters may be longer here than in other parts of Italy it is just part of the beauty of living in Sondrio’s valleys he treks up the mountains to the lakes where he goes fishing a favourite pastime of his since he was young His preferred spot is above the famous Acquafraggia waterfalls where a serene stillness hangs in the waters before it gushes down below “There are no roads so you have to go by foot To get to the top of the waterfall it’s like a 4-hour hike And you can fish there” he says with a smile He has the tranquil energy typical of those who live in this neck of the woods energy that hides an extraordinary passion for the territory including accommodations and services exclusive to the region It is the result of the work of Explora S.p.A. a Lombardy Region company whose primary function is to promote the entire tourist offer of the Lombardy Region Italy plays host to the World Mountain Running Association (WMRA) World Cup finale on Sunday as runners head to Chiavenna-Lagunc in Lombardy Sunday’s races in northern Italy will decide the overall winners of the WMRA World Cup in the men’s and women’s categories after 16 gruelling stages There will also be the third and final short uphill race of the year with the male and female standings both incredibly tight at the top Joint-leaders in the women’s short uphill category Allie McLaughlin (USA) and Andrea Mayr (AUT) are both on 100 points and set to battle it out for No Ondrej Fejfar (CZE) leads the men’s section with 110 points from two races with Darren Thomas (USA) and Henri Aymonod (ITA) joint-second with 100 points the top five runners in the World Cup standings will all be on the start line in Chiavenna Leader Joyce Njeru (KEN) is currently on 565 points and five clear of Charlotte Morgan (GBR) in second Italian Alice Gaggi is in third on 510 points with Lucy Murigi (KEN) 74 points behind on 436 in fourth Timea Merényi (HUN) completes the top five with 331 points 1 in the men’s World Cup rankings and will start the race on Sunday alongside No 2 Aymonod (ITA) and third-place Geoffrey Ndungu (KEN) will also face competition from Raul Criado (ESP) Steeped in mountain running history and tradition Chiavenna-Lagunc provides a fitting finale for this year’s WMRA World Cup which winds up from Chiavenna at 352 metres to Lagunc at 1352 metres Chiavenna-Lagunc has been recognised by tourist organisation Touring Club Italiano for preserving historical areas and making their architectural artistic and naturalistic resources available to the public Many products featured on this site were editorially chosen Motorcyclist may receive financial compensation for products purchased through this site Copyright © 2025 Motorcyclist. An Octane Media, LLC Publication. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Twenty-two poststroke patients performed a session composed of a sequence of 3D reaching movements. They were assessed through an instrumental assessment, by recording kinematics and electromyography to extract muscle synergies and their activation commands. Patients’ motor synergies were grouped by the means of cluster analysis. Consistency and characterization of each cluster was assessed and clinically profiled by comparison with standard motor assessments. Motor synergies were successfully extracted on all 22 patients. Five basic clusters were identified as a trade-off between clustering precision and synthesis power, representing: healthy-like activations, two shoulder compensatory strategies, two elbow predominance patterns. Each cluster was provided with a deep characterization and correlation with clinical scales, range of motion, and smoothness. The clustering of muscle synergies enabled a pretherapy characterization of patients. Such technique may affect several aspects of the therapy: prediction of outcomes, evaluation of the treatments, customization of doses, and therapies. Volume 5 - 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2017.00062 Background: A deep characterization of neurological patients is a crucial step for a detailed knowledge of the pathology and maximal exploitation and customization of the rehabilitation therapy The muscle synergies analysis was designed to investigate how muscles coactivate and how their eliciting commands change in time during movement production Few studies investigated the value of muscle synergies for the characterization of neurological patients before rehabilitation therapies the synergy analysis was used to characterize a group of chronic poststroke hemiplegic patients Methods: Twenty-two poststroke patients performed a session composed of a sequence of 3D reaching movements They were assessed through an instrumental assessment by recording kinematics and electromyography to extract muscle synergies and their activation commands Patients’ motor synergies were grouped by the means of cluster analysis Consistency and characterization of each cluster was assessed and clinically profiled by comparison with standard motor assessments Results: Motor synergies were successfully extracted on all 22 patients Five basic clusters were identified as a trade-off between clustering precision and synthesis power Each cluster was provided with a deep characterization and correlation with clinical scales Conclusion: The clustering of muscle synergies enabled a pretherapy characterization of patients Such technique may affect several aspects of the therapy: prediction of outcomes These approaches generally have good correlation with actual upper limb recovery but suffer of interindividual variability and do not take into account others crucial factors that can be evinced only with instrumental evaluation where many questions are moved about how machines and robots should intervene to help the motor recovery no precise answer can be given due to the lack of data and knowledge about patients’ status Such observations coming from recent literature suggest that multi-domain approaches related not only to clinical scales but also to other domains might instead be useful for at least two reasons they might provide deeper assessment; secondly The coupling with instrumental evaluation should become a more detailed procedure that helps in orienting therapies for neurological patients Synergies dataset composition is usually compared by matching them according to the similarity of their dot product. Another common method to compare synergies after their extraction is clustering. Clustering was usually conducted with k-means (Steele et al., 2015) or hierarchical clustering (García-Cossio et al., 2014) Such procedures are needed in attempts to provide physiological interpretation of the results (i.e. coupling each synergy with a physiological function within the examined motor task) clustering often leads to uneasy clinical interpretation repeatability and solidity of extracted synergies of healthy people in interaction with devices for rehabilitation during reaching movements was demonstrated Such results from the literature can be summarized by underlying that pathological subjects present a wide variety of synergies alteration that are not easily classified their comprehension is of primary importance for better knowledge of the pathology and to provide the best therapy and assistance neurological patients differ consistently in terms of activations and motor production These features introduce high variability that lead to: (1) alteration in synergies composition (2) alteration in timing of synergies elicitation and (4) difficulties in determining metrics for synergies comparison The analysis conducted in the literature usually focuses on clustering of patients and/or healthy subjects depending on the number of extracted modules (Clark et al., 2010; Roh et al., 2013) correspondence among synergies is not easily detectable especially when neurological patients are involved since they show a wide variety of motor impairments a solid method for clinical interpretation of clustering is proposed to provide characterization on a cohort of poststroke patients The aim of the study was to use muscular synergies for a deep characterization of poststroke patients prior to rehabilitation therapies The study took place at Presidio di Riabilitazione dell’Ospedale Valduce Villa Beretta during the period ranging from years 2014 to 2016 The study was reviewed and approved by the local Ethics Committee at Lecco Manzoni Hospital and was conducted in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki Written informed consent was obtained from each subject before inclusion in the study including reaching performance scale (RPS) and FMA scores Patients’ demographic and clinical data A Flowchart illustrating the outline of the study is shown in Figure 1. Twenty-two patients were recruited and asked to perform several repetitions of reaching movements (Figure 2) s-EMG of 8 involved muscles were recorded and used to extract muscle synergies patterns Synergies were clustered and patients grouped according to their EMG patterns Each group was provided with a clinical profiling Clinical scales were used as reference to comment and discuss muscle synergies groups Main results underlined the emergency of five distinct clusters which distinguish between shoulder and elbow prevalence patterns Shoulder patterns split into healthy-like activations Distal patterns distinguish between flexor or extensor predominance The comparison with clinical scales underlined that synergies clustering does not univocally correlate with standard clinical assessments The 3D frontal reaching movement executed by patient 1 The following equipment was used in this study: • BTS Smart-D system for kinematics (recorded at 140 Hz) and EMG (recorded at 1,000 Hz); Kinematics was recorded for D5 and C7 vertebras s-EMG was recorded on the following Selected Muscles: upper trapezius (Tr) Clinical evaluations were performed by a physical therapist using the FMA (Potter et al., 2011) and the RPS (Levin et al., 2004) belonging to the body function domain of the ICF model and joint functioning in patients with poststroke hemiplegia we used only the upper extremity motor section of the FMA (scale 0–66 As a second assessment scale, The RPS (Levin et al., 2004, 2012) was used It is a clinical scale that monitors the execution of 3D reaching gestures monitoring the following characteristics of movement execution: trunk Each section is given a score ranging from 0 to 3 depending on the quality of the performances which evaluates the synergies elicited in frontal reaching movements the RPS is used as comparison to discuss muscular synergies cluster composition EMG(t) represents the EMG data at time t and N is the total number of extracted synergies The order of the factorization r was chosen increasingly from 1 to 8 (maximum number of muscles that characterizes the dimensionality of the problem). For each r, the NMF algorithm was applied 1,000 times in order to avoid local minima and the repetition accounting for the higher variance of the signal was chosen as the representative of order r. The number of synergies was chosen as the minimum r explaining at least 0.80 of the variance of the signal (Coscia et al., 2014) A second synergy (S2) involves mainly the Tr and S2 is active especially at the beginning of the movement and is slightly evoked even at the end by stiffening it to prepare the elevation of the limb S2 slightly intervenes to stabilize the limb at the end of the movement and to keep the arm elevated at about 90° over which the Tr becomes a shoulder elevator Rows 1–4 show synergies composition Rows 5–8 show synergies activation profiles corresponding to synergies Authors conclude previous studies in the literature find that the basic elements of the 3D reaching movements are three: a stabilizing initial effect followed by a coupled action of shoulder flexion and elbow extension Authors will hereby refer to the shoulder flexion/elbow extension synergy by “S1.” Some state-of-the-art articles worked on the effect of therapies on muscular synergies, or in the differentiation between the more affected limb and the less affected one (Cheung et al., 2009; Roh et al., 2015) defining clusters to group synergies according to their composition All the dataset of the extracted synergies are clustered into a limited number of groups and changes in cluster numbers and composition are metrics to evaluate the difference between limbs performance or between groups of patients with different level of impairment However, for the purpose of this work, including all the extracted synergies into a single cluster analysis might lead to hard clinical interpretation of the clusters (and patients’ classification) for at least two reasons. First, many studies (Roh et al., 2013) report how synergies related to the same motor function (e.g., shoulder flexion) “split into two or more clusters” (Roh et al., 2015) Such cluster composition makes correspondence between clusters and motor functions not easy interpretable muscular synergies are often grouped in the literature regardless of their activation timing Such procedure might be risky in terms of interpretation since similar activation patterns While this issue is less likely to happen on healthy people the variability in patients is high and might lead to misinterpretation Such considerations lead the authors to the choice of conducting the cluster analysis considering only S1, since it strongly characterizes frontal reaching movements, as deeply explained in the previous paragraph. Consequently, only synergies sharing similar activation timing (first row for synergies and fifth row for activations in Figure 4) are considered for cluster analysis Such a procedure is limited to a restricted part of the dataset (the most important one for performing frontal reaching movements) but guarantees that the clustering refers to synergies that perform (or attempt to perform) the same “motor function.” Clusters composition: the S1 of each patient is displayed the synergy that prevails in terms of entity of activation is also active in the moment of maximum limb elevation increasing in the last part of the reaching movement or patients that present a “sparse” group of synergies may show patterns of more complex identification This may happen because S1 is partially absent (due to limited ROM) or because it fractionates into two or more synergies the choice of S1 was qualitatively driven by the following criteria: (1) entity of the activation (preferred on severely impaired patients who have limited ROM) and (2) timing of elicitation of the synergy (preferred for patients who present fractionation issues) this procedure allows a coherent method for the profiling of the clinical status of patients in the framework of muscle synergies the selection of the appropriate number of clusters was made by pondering the following metrics: (1) Parsimonious number of clusters for synthesis power (lowest possible number of clusters as a synthetic index for each clustering order (3) Mean scalar product among all the clusters for each cluster order Too similar clusters might be grouped together decreasing the order of the clustering single-patient cluster solutions are avoided or at least limited authors decided to select the lowest number of clusters according to whom both the Silhouette Score and the Mean Scalar Product would increase and decrease increasing the number of clusters has certainly lead to better clustering increasing the number of clusters may not be needed Extracted synergies and activation profiles are reported in Figure 3 by matching at best activation profiles timing Table 2 shows details of Patients clustering for optimal solutions for number of clusters ranging from 2 to 11 according to the criteria explained in the Section “Materials and Methods.” Number of extracted clusters is reported accompanied by Silhouette score Following criterion (1) proposed in the paragraph 2.7 there is the possibility that every centroid is populated by at least two patients Increasing further the number of clusters would prevent any kind of generalization In respect to the clustering solution of order 4 the clustering solution of order 5 shows improving of both Silhouette Score and decrease of Mean Dot Product the choice of five clusters was done as a trade-off between parsimony and adequateness of precision in patients’ description Solutions with 6 or more clusters were all characterized by more than one centroid dedicated to a single subject Solution with number of clusters = 5 instead had only one single-patient cluster Clustering Composition for clustering order = 5 is reported in Figure 4 along with the correspondent centroids. Clusters centroids for five clusters grouping are reported in detail in Figure 5 and patients composing each clusters are listed in Table 3 Cluster Centroids extracted with Matlab k-means Five clusters were identified: healthy-like activations two shoulder compensatory strategies (based on trapezius and pectoralis) and two distal patterns (one with prevalence of elbow flexors Table 4 reports mean dot product between clusters Detailed FMA scores for each of the five clusters is reported in Figure 6 along with mean and standard deviation of each cluster Detailed RPS scores for each of the five clusters is reported in Figure 7 Table 5 reports mean shoulder flexion angles, elbow extension angles, and normalized jerk for each patient. Detailed shoulder flexion angle (computed in the sagittal plane) and elbow extension angle, for each of the five clusters is reported in Figure 8 Shoulder flexion angle in the sagittal plane and elbow extension angle Detailed Normalized Jerk scores for each of the five clusters is reported in Figure 9 As for other matrix factorization methods reported in the literature (Tresch et al., 2006; Lin and Scott, 2012; Naik and Nguyen, 2015) the NMF algorithm finds the best decomposition for explaining the major amount of the variance of the original EMG envelope It means that the method is applied to EMG decomposition without specific knowledge of the nature of the EMG signal itself; the procedure is purely mathematical and the results reflect such characteristic It is indeed relevant to investigate not only patterns of coactivating muscles (synergies) but also how repeatable the activation commands are Such issue is sometimes ignored in the literature their extraction is nothing but the result of a mathematical optimization without representing real repeatable patterns This is a fundamental feature of skilled and purposeful motor control and a requisite to consider synergies extraction as a valuable procedure authors considered of crucial importance to apply qualitative selection of the modules to be matched on the basis of the composition of the synergies and of the timing of their activation introducing critical clinical interpretation of the data Such point is crucial for a correct synergies matching even though it is partially limiting since algorithms are applied only to the most relevant synergy for each patient Synergy 1 not only characterizes the execution of 3D reaching movements but also includes a major part of the EMG activity would equally weight Synergies 2–4 that are less relevant Extending the analysis to all the extracted synergies would likely lead to complete impossibility of detecting reliable patterns into the data due to the absence of matching temporal activation profiles Matching elevation synergies according to activation profile during the elevation phase was considered as the best way for patients clustering and characterization Clusters are hereby described according to their clinical profiling Cluster 1 includes patients that show coactivation patterns that are similar to the ones of healthy subjects (d’Avella et al., 2006; Scano et al., 2017) Cluster 1 shows the highest mean scores both in RPS and FMA this group appears as less homogeneous than Cluster 2 Cluster 1 includes also low-functioning patients such as Pt17 The phenomenon of the joining of high and low functioning patients can be described by the fact that while motor control features indicate correct activation patterns low functioning patients are characterized by global weakness that prevents them from compensating with other muscles presenting a healthy-like activation pattern and not being synergies amplitude of activation comparable in terms of magnitude from patient to patient even higher order clustering would lead to common grouping healthy-like activation pattern (Da dominance with contribution of Dm) is not a guarantee of high functioning patients belonging to Cluster 1 have intact selective motor control capabilities and are candidate to motor improvement (low-functioning patients) or motor refinement (high-functioning patients) Kinematics confirm previous considerations All patients belonging to Cluster 1 have full or nearly full ROM at the shoulder while some of them do not extend correctly the elbow The mean Normalized Jerk within the cluster is quite low indicating a quite smooth movement execution This result confirms that Cluster 1 and Cluster 2 gather the majority of patients that have better motor performance Cluster 3 shows patients who strongly compensate by activating the Pm muscle Their ROM is often not complete (with the exception of Patient 4) and the compensation may lead to shoulder adduction and intrarotation the functional level presents high variability but is consistently lower than the one of previous clusters Prognostic indications coming from the belonging to this cluster might be worse if compared to Clusters 1 and 2; main elevator agonists in the sagittal plane play less relevant role than the pectoralis that is not an elevator it should be noted that the composition of this cluster is not homogeneous in terms of clinical scales Such finding is confirmed by kinematic parameters that range from very good ROM and smoothness (Pt14) to very low performances (Pt20) Cluster 3 is probably the less uniform one Cluster 4 is a single-patient cluster having low proximal functionality characterized by the prevalence of elbow/distal muscles in the elevation phase The patient present very low RPS and FMA scores and have very limited/null ROM in respect to rest/equilibrium poses The patient belonging to this cluster shows prevalence of triceps activity and lacks muscular tone needed to perform the movement He is likely to show reduced recovery; kinematics indexes indicate very low ROM and smoothness Patients belonging to Cluster 5 show low proximal functionality Such patient present extremely low RPS and FMA scores and have very limited/null ROM in respect to rest/equilibrium poses Patients belonging to this cluster show prevalence of elbow flexors muscles (biceps and Br) activity and lacks muscular tone needed to perform the movement They are likely to show poor prognostic outcomes since kinematics shows extremely reduced ROM and low smoothness It might be claimed that the sample of patients in this study splits into two main groups: patients with shoulder prevalence and elbow prevalence Each group further splits depending on the compensatory strategy used for shoulder flexion (no pattern compensation; Tr compensation; pectoralis compensation) and elbow prevalence (flexors and extensors) This data clustering might be a valuable starting point for interpreting patients’ performance and motor recovery The findings of the present study seem to integrate this statement suggesting that patients lacking Da and/or Tr activity might partially compensate with pectoralis Such features are in this study represented by healthy-like flexors (Cluster 1 which does not show pattern alterations in respect to physiological movement) and by two main shoulder compensatory strategies assigned mainly to Tr (Cluster 2) and Pm (Cluster 3) this study shows two clusters for patients who present mainly EMG activity on the elbow Cluster 4 is represented by a patient who shows mainly elbow extensor activity while Cluster 5 groups prevalence on elbow flexion activity both the groups are characterized by global shoulder weakness and poor motor outcomes in 3D reaching movement (null or very low shoulder flexion authors observed that muscular synergies profiling does not match precisely the evaluation provided by clinical scales suggesting that the evaluation provided by standard tools should be integrated for complete assessment and patients characterization clinical scales might be insufficient for correct and deep patients’ profiling and therapy customization starting from quite low-order clusters (5) algorithms for clustering extraction tend to create single-patient centroids (at least in the group of patients examined in this study) Order 7 clustering individuates three single-patient-based centroids Such findings denote the difficultness in grouping patients that are in general characterized by their own peculiar muscular patterns cluster analysis suggests that patients tend to show individual patterns order 5 clustering was considered as a reasonable grouping order to provide deep enough characterization It detects a centroid characterized by healthy-like activations Few studies in the literature investigated the usefulness of a detailed knowledge of patients’ motor capabilities for a pretherapy detailed assessment Such a feature would give the clinician the capability of selecting a sequence of interventions that proved in the past to be effective on that specific group of patients Muscular synergies have relevant potential under this point of view They are extracted directly from the stimulation given by the nerves to the muscles on the patient and are not the result of tests clinical scales or kinematic outcome variables synergies approach can be tuned by selecting trying to reduce the number of clusters and classifications to synthetize groups and interventions (especially useful on a limited sample like in this study); (2) analytic approaches detailing many more clusters for capturing even minor motor differences (which the synthetic approach could be useful to identify macrodivisions such as deciding if a patient is more suitable for a specific therapy approach in a restricted range of choices the analytic approach might be chosen to specify the more suitable detail on refined customization Further investigations on muscle synergies measured before and after a training period could demonstrate if beyond synergy modification which has been already established there could also be a cluster modification or cluster transfer between patients defining the validity of the approach for prediction of outcome variations To choose the most suitable approach of rehabilitation links to the concept of predicting the therapy outcome selecting a therapy implicitly assumes that the clinician specifies motor functions to be trained and expected results A class of predictors includes imaging assessment like transcranial magnetic stimulation or magnetic resonance imaging to verify the integrity of the corticospinal tract and brain (Puig et al., 2011) Both instruments can give more reliable information about the general condition of the patient are far more expensive time-consuming and have some contraindications Muscle synergies demonstrate good reliability in describing the EMG pattern organization but they have never been exploited as outcome predictors the problem of patients’ characterization before therapy is addressed and discussed in the framework of muscular synergies Such procedure identified a trade-off solution of five clusters on a population sample of 22 poststroke subjects Each cluster was characterized by specific compensatory strategies due to impairment the muscular synergies profiling does not match precisely the evaluation provided by clinical scales suggesting that the evaluation provided by standard tools should be integrated for complete assessment and patients’ characterization Further studies will investigate the generalizing power of the method and of the identified groups in a pre–post rehabilitation trial muscle synergies extraction and clustering might be used also to describe critically the effects of a therapy Results could be observed by groups as a whole The first result that can be observed is related to the number of clustered needed to “explain” patients’ motor behavior in respect to the beginning of the therapy A change in the number of clusters might indicate convergence toward specific patterns (which may be promoted by the rehabilitation approach) or vice versa Even dispersion inside clusters may be indicators of the goodness of the clustering and its evolution in time Single patients may present transitions from a cluster region to another Such a result can be of great interest in evaluating the modifications of patients’ motor behavior and to understand which patients may achieve higher benefits due to the therapy Further studies will test the method proposed in this article for the assessment of the effect of robotic therapy approach to upper-limb rehabilitation Modifications of clusters and shifting from one clusters to another will be considered as valuable insights for assessing the efficacy of the therapy This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of local Ethics Committee at Lecco Manzoni Hospital with written informed consent from all subjects All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki The protocol was approved by the local Ethics Committee at Lecco Manzoni Hospital wrote the software for synergies extraction AC performed the experimental campaign and participated to data analysis and interpretation MM was responsible for the research project that funded the work He revised the article and participated to data analysis and discussion FM is the head of the Villa Beretta Hospital and participated to the conception of the evaluation system and gave clinical interpretation to the data The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest RIPRENDO@home is a Regional research project funded under the framework agreement between Regione Lombardia and the National Council of Research (D.G.R Future Home for Future Communities is a 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for predicting upper-limb motor recovery in chronic stroke robot-assisted rehabilitation Upper Extremity Stroke Algorithm Working Group Best practice for arm recovery post stroke: an international application Molinari Tosatti L and Molteni F (2017) Muscle Synergies-Based Characterization and Clustering of Poststroke Patients in Reaching Movements Received: 25 August 2017; Accepted: 26 September 2017; Published: 13 October 2017 Copyright: © 2017 Scano, Chiavenna, Malosio, Molinari Tosatti and Molteni. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Alessandro Scano, YWxlc3NhbmRyby5zY2Fub0BpdGlhLmNuci5pdA== Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher. 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish. Background: Kinematic and muscle patterns underlying hand grasps have been widely investigated in the literature. However, the identification of a reduced set of motor modules, generalizing across subjects and grasps, may be valuable for increasing the knowledge of hand motor control, and provide methods to be exploited in prosthesis control and hand rehabilitation. Methods: Motor muscle synergies were extracted from a publicly available database including 28 subjects, executing 20 hand grasps selected for daily-life activities. The spatial synergies and temporal components were analyzed with a clustering algorithm to characterize the patterns underlying hand-grasps. Volume 12 - 2018 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbot.2018.00057 This article is part of the Research TopicHuman-in-the-Loop Robot Control and LearningView all 16 articles Background: Kinematic and muscle patterns underlying hand grasps have been widely investigated in the literature the identification of a reduced set of motor modules may be valuable for increasing the knowledge of hand motor control and provide methods to be exploited in prosthesis control and hand rehabilitation Methods: Motor muscle synergies were extracted from a publicly available database including 28 subjects executing 20 hand grasps selected for daily-life activities The spatial synergies and temporal components were analyzed with a clustering algorithm to characterize the patterns underlying hand-grasps Results: Motor synergies were successfully extracted on all 28 subjects Clustering orders ranging from 2 to 50 were tested each one represented by a spatial motor module approximates the original dataset with a mean maximum error of 5% on reconstructed modules; however each spatial synergy might be employed with different timing and recruited at different grasp stages Two temporal activation patterns are often recognized Conclusions: This paper presents one of the biggest analysis of muscle synergies of hand grasps currently available The results of 28 subjects performing 20 different grasps suggest that a limited number of time dependent motor modules (shared among subjects) correctly elicited by a control activation signal may underlie the execution of a large variety of hand grasps spatial synergies are not strongly related to specific motor functions but may be recruited at different stages This result can lead to applications in rehabilitation and assistive robotics involving the return of the arm and hand to the rest position Hand grasps have been investigated mainly in the domain of finger joint kinematics and past studies have developed qualitative taxonomies to describe and cluster different types of grasps (Cutkosky, 1989) The main distinction among grasps was between power grasps and precision grasps but many other features can be taken into account for grasp characterization such as the limb configuration for the task execution or the geometry of the object to grasp Considering the complexity of hand control involving a remarkable number of degrees of freedom and redundancy many studies in the literature applied feature extraction methods to identify a subset of the original data for an accurate description of hand functioning the study also remarks that the remaining variation is not due to noise but to motor control modules needed for fine tuning The fact that a limited number of modules may account for a large variety of grasps is thus commonly deduced from the literature. A recent study by Prevete et al. (2018) investigated the hypothesis of sparsity applied to kinematic synergies during hand grasps sparsity might be found both at the spatial synergy level (indicating that spatial modules may incorporate only some joints or muscles) and in the coordination of the synergies in which only a reduced number of overlapping modules contribute to the execution of an action This concept fits well with previous research on dimensionality reduction with the addition that sparsity could partially explain the different number of synergies extracted in different studies (together with varying study designs) The “main synergy” represents a “global while the other two synergies account for dorsal and ventral patterns Overduin et al. (2008) used the time-varying muscle synergy model to analyze a set of 25 grasps of two monkeys and found that three synergies could explain 71% of the total sEMG variation for proximal muscles 83% for the wrist and extrinsic hand muscles and 81% among intrinsic muscles The first of the three synergies was linked to the muscles involved in the reach phase operated by proximal muscles and distal flexors the second was characterized by bimodal activation of distal muscles and the third more related to the transport of the object featured by proximal muscles and distal extensors the database includes over 120 subjects (including 11 trans-radial amputees) repeating as naturally as possible up to 53 hand movements with several acquisition setups ranging in price from a few hundred to several thousand dollars The aim of Ninapro is to foster the improvement of the field by allowing the development and test of advanced machine learning methods the path to natural control of dexterous prosthetic hands can also be paved by the simplification of the problem for instance via the identification of a set of motor primitives sufficient to control a comprehensive set of hand grasps there are several open points regarding hand grasp synergies that can be investigated in more detail involve a large variety of grasps but a limited number of subjects or map a reduced number of grasps compared to the ones that are needed for daily life activities a limited number of studies focuses on muscle patterns rather than on hand kinematics most studies focused especially on the spatial organization of motor modules while the temporal components were less analyzed to provide a set of benchmark muscle hand synergies extracted from the publicly available NinaPro database that includes a considerable number of subjects while repeating a comprehensive number of hand grasps; second to evaluate the effects of the reduction of dimensionality of the dataset on the accurateness in reconstructing the original dataset of synergies; third to characterize the spatial and temporal features of the subjects included in the dataset CyberGlove Systems LLC 2) allowed to measure hand kinematics using 22-sensors Considering that the primary objective of this study was to characterize the hand grasps rather than the dynamics of the reaching phase at proximal level the choice of the NinaPro database is reasonable since it includes recordings from extrinsic hand muscles *Twelve subjects were excluded from analysis because noise was found on at least one of the SEMG channels in some grasps The decomposition algorithm applied to extract synergies would be influenced even in case of removal of the affected channels from the analysis Figure 2. sEMG electrode placement: an array of 8 equally spaced electrodes was worn at the forearm level (labeled f1-f8), two probes on finger flexors and extensors, and on biceps caput longus and triceps caput medialis, according to the protocol introduced in the Ninapro database (Atzori et al., 2014a) Twelve subjects were excluded from the analysis because the proper extraction of synergies was prevented by noise of the sEMG channels The decomposition algorithm applied to extract synergies would have been influenced Summary of the demographic data of the involved subjects The subjects were asked to repeat the movements represented in short films that were shown on the screen of a laptop with their right hand and they were asked to concentrate on mimicking the movements rather than on exerting high forces with each repetition lasting 5 s and separated by the other movements by 3 s of rest The experiment was approved by the Ethics Commission of the Canton Valais (Switzerland) and before data acquisition the subjects were given a thorough written and oral explanation of the experiment itself and were asked to sign an informed consent The 20 grasps considered in this study are shown They provide a comprehensive mapping of the repertoire of hand grasps available to human subjects and are stored in the publicly available Ninapro Database The NMF decomposes the sEMG matrix into the product of two matrices and the second one representing time-variant activation commands for each synergy (ci) sEMG(t) represents the sEMG data at time t and N is the total number of extracted synergies The order of the factorization r was chosen, increasing from 1 to 50 (to limit the dimensionality for synthesis). For each r, the NMF algorithm was applied 1,000 times in order to avoid local minima. The repetition accounting for the highest variance of the signal was chosen as the representative of order r. The number of synergies was chosen as the minimum r explaining at least 90% of the variance of the signal (Clark et al., 2010) Further synergies were added only if the total amount of variation was increased of at least 5% for each further synergy standard analysis methods may include the definition of clusters to group synergies according to their spatial composition The set of extracted synergies can be clustered to obtain a limited number of spatial patterns each one represented by a centroid (mean spatial synergy) In this work, the extracted synergies were included into a single cluster analysis. Grouping all the modules could lead to complex matching between each spatial component and the corresponding motor function (Scano et al., 2017). In fact, it was reported in Roh et al. (2013) that synergies related to the same motor function may split into two or more clusters the correspondence between the phases of the grasps and the motor synergy recruitment is not always clearly identifiable the synergy prevailing in terms of magnitude of the temporal components is the one characterizing the moment of the grasp hold a relevant number of subjects may show patterns more complex to identify performing the clustering procedure on the whole dataset allowed to provide a comprehensive overview of all the modules involved in hand grasping tasks a comprehensive mapping of hand grasps is proposed by considering the whole dataset for analysis The cluster analysis was conducted using the k-means clustering algorithm The algorithm was applied to an aggregated matrix containing the whole dataset of muscle synergies extracted from all subjects was tested by repeating the algorithm 200 times and selecting the best solution for each order according to the metrics described in the following section The selection of the appropriate number of clusters (mean spatial synergies, each one represented by a cluster centroid) was made by pondering the following metrics (Bora et al., 2014): 1) The Mean Euclidean Distance (MED) of the population from the reference centroids the better elements fit into their cluster 2) When the k-means clustering procedure is applied the number of desired clusters N must be specified Defining as M the number of elements to be clustered (in this case N can range between 1 and the total number of the clustered elements (1<=N<=M) the clustering procedure classifies a population within a single group: thus the cluster solution 1 is (implicitly) the mean of a population and corresponds to the lowest level of precision in approximating a population with a clustering procedure the Normalized Euclidean Distance (NED) was computed by considering the cluster solution 1 as the source of maximum clustering error the NED for each clustering order i was computed as: 3) The slope of the Normalized Euclidean Distance (NED') is NED derivative NED indicates how the precision of the cluster analysis increases when increasing the order of the clustering Each of the previous three metrics can be considered for the choice of the clustering order by imposing a threshold on the reconstruction accuracy the choice is driven by the principle of using a parsimonious number of clusters for synthesis power (the lowest possible number of clusters The threshold selected by the experimenters in this work was 5% the number of clusters was selected as the minimum number needed to have the NED < 0.05 The hypothesis that justifies the use of cluster analysis is that the dataset can be represented with a chosen number of cluster centroids depending on the maximum error that the experimenter is willing to accept describing the original dataset of motor modules with a specific level of precision (and a choice of dimensionality) The characterization of the obtained mean spatial synergies was furtherly specified by considering all the pairwise dot products between their compositions initially associated with its respective spatial synergy was matched to its relative centroid after cluster identification all the temporal components were averaged to extract a mean temporal component for each cluster representing a mean activation of the spatial synergy in time the characterization of temporal components was concluded by considering the correlations between the mean temporal components Given the aims of the study (see Introduction): “First, to provide a set of benchmark muscle hand synergies extracted from publicly available data1 including a considerable number of subjects that perform a comprehensive number of hand grasps; second to characterize the spatial and temporal features of the sample of subjects included in the dataset,” the following outcome measures were defined: Outcome 1: Definition of the complete dataset of extracted muscle synergies of healthy subjects in freely executed grasps; methods and statistics: NMF algorithm for factorization; 90% of the VAF + minimum slope 0.05 for each further extracted synergy Outcome 2: Definition of cluster centroids for muscle synergies in freely executed grasps; methods and statistics: k-means clustering; lowest normalized Euclidean distance to define the number of centroids Outcome 3a: Characterization of the spatial composition of the centroids; methods and statistics: dot products between pairwise centroids to assess their difference in composition Outcome 3b: Characterization of the temporal features of the centroids; methods and statistics: Pearson correlations between temporal components The extracted synergy dataset is summarized in Figure 4 by portraying the mean spatial synergy compositions and cumulated temporal component profiles and matched according to the similarity of their temporal components computed with the Pearson's correlation coefficient only the first two synergies of each extracted dataset were portrayed (while three modules were extracted in some grasps) Figure 4. The whole dataset of synergies extracted for each grasp is synthetically reported, coupled with the corresponding cumulated temporal components. For each grasp (numbered 1–20 as in the order shown in Figure 2) The mean spatial synergies are computed by averaging the spatial synergies grouped by matching each subject's spatial synergies according to the Pearson's Correlation coefficient computed on the temporal components Only the first two modules are reported for each grasp (module 1 used mainly in the pre-shaping and release phases) Mean spatial synergies are also coupled with the cumulated mean temporal components that modulate in time the mean spatial synergies plotted as percentage of the normalized duration of each movement The whole dataset of spatial synergies, which is composed of 966 extracted modules, was clustered according to the k-means algorithm, with a clustering order ranging from 1 to 50. Figure 5 shows the graphs with the metrics used for the choice of a reasonable number of clusters as synthetic representation of the spatial synergies of the dataset Increasing the order of the clustering leads to a monotonic decrease of the NED only 10 clusters are needed to approximate the original dataset It can also be observed that a further increase of the order of the clustering provides only slightly increased precision in describing the dataset Metrics for the selection of the correct number of clusters for the description of the dataset Panel (A) describes the mean Euclidean distance between the centroids identified with the k-means algorithm and the synergies that belong to that centroids considering the solution of order 1 as the maximum approximation error (when the dataset of spatial synergies is approximated with its mean—SSm) Panel (C) shows the derivative of the error (slope) indicating the entity of the reduction of the error in relation to the increase of the number of clusters Right panels show a zoomed view of left panels by imposing a threshold of a maximum tolerable mean error the solution corresponding to a lower number of clusters can be selected the maximum normalized Euclidean error was reasonably set at 0.05*SSm expressing the temporal relation that links each spatial synergy to the others and indicate that some mean temporal components are very closely related to others (e.g. These results are critically analyzed in the following paragraphs The identified centroids (mean spatial synergies) Hypothesizing a desired maximum error of 0.05 (normalized in respect to the solution of order 1) Ten motor modules are thus enough to describe with good level of precision the original dataset The 10 clusters composition are reported in (A) along with the number of elements belonging to each cluster expressed as percentage of the original dataset Summary of the extracted spatial synergies and mean temporal components associated with each spatial synergy Spatial synergies are represented in a polar plot (A) and with histograms (B) and mean temporal components are shown in light gray The matrix identifies the variability between all the pairs of spatial modules The paired similarity is always >0.60 indicating that the some muscle components are shared between centroid pairs The matrix identifies the variability between all the pairs of temporal components associated to the mean spatial synergies assessed with the Pearson's Correlation coefficient The paired correlation ranges from 0.30 to 1 indicating that some modules are exploited with very similar (shared) control signals while other modules are controlled with different timing it should be remarked that the movements considered in this study were not performed against gravity reducing consistently the involvement of shoulder muscles The main spatial synergies were not directly linkable to specific grasp types or motor functions suggesting that the spatial modules that can be employed for the execution of different grasp types each spatial module can be elicited at different stages these results suggest that grasp types and muscle synergies may not be univocally related: some muscle patterns may be used for different grasp types or the same grasp might be controlled with slightly different muscle synergies depending on the subject The analysis of temporal components underlines that spatial patterns may be recruited at different stages of a grasp with variability related both to the subject who executes the grasp and the type of grasp This result is confirmed by the high correlation of the temporal components of many clusters mean temporal components suggest that some patterns are more often used during the grasp phase with a monophasic while other patterns are biphasic and usually activate when the hand opens so in the approaching/pre-shaping phase and in the release phase rather than in the middle of the grasp Such findings can be taken into account for several applications related to high level robotic hand and prosthesis control as described in section Impact of the Muscle Synergy Dataset it is proposed that a linear combination of centroids properly activated by their temporal components can be enough to reconstruct the physical space of the end effector in a large variety of grasp types with high accuracy the authors are aware that the noticeable reduction of the original dataset implies that the original sEMGs are reconstructed with a pre-determined level of precision The proper tradeoff between accuracy and synthesis needs to be tested in future work where the reduced dataset is integrated into a real control system and future developments should also consider these variables for a complete assessment muscle synergies were extracted from the recordings of a publicly available dataset The extracted synergies were clustered from a cohort of 28 subjects executing a variety of hand grasps The synergies are often characterized by two temporal activation patterns: a strong co-activation corresponding to the grasp/hold phase and two minor co-activating patterns related to hand opening (visible in the pre-shaping and release phase) The conclusions of this article suggest that a limited number of time-dependent motor modules spatial synergies are not strongly related to a specific motor functions but have a sparse recruiting timing wrote the software for synergy extraction and clustering AC participated to data analysis and interpretation LM participated to data analysis and wrote the paper HM acquired the NinaPro database and wrote the paper participated in the design of the study and to data interpretation This work was funded by the National Research Council of Italy within the research project: muscle Synergies Mapping of Upper Limb Reaching and Hand Grasps aimed at Human-Robot Interaction description in Rehabilitation and Industrial Applications (SyRIA) 1. ^Ninapro database: http://ninapro.hevs.ch Epidemiologic 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August 2018; Published: 25 September 2018 Copyright © 2018 Scano, Chiavenna, Molinari Tosatti, Müller and Atzori. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited *Correspondence: Alessandro Scano, YWxlc3NhbmRyby5zY2Fub0BzdGlpbWEuY25yLml0 Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish Italy's Henri Aymonod and Joyce Muthoni Njeru of Kenya have been crowned the overall World Mountain Running Association (WMRA) World Cup champions following the final race of the 2021 series at Chiavenna-Lagunc on Sunday (10) The Kilometro Verticale Chiavenna-Lagunc was a fitting setting to decide the winners of the overall World Cup as well as the short uphill category with the winners of Sunday's race – Aymonod and Austria's Andrea Mayr – also claiming those category titles The start lists featured a mix of short uphill specialists and athletes more comfortable with longer races but committed to adding to their World Cup points totals Kenya's 2021 WMRA World Cup winner Joyce Muthoni Njeru (© Luca Coluccia) The women set off for the historic vertical kilometre race first seeing the top three change as the competition progressed Eventually it was Mayr who won by a huge margin but an agonising one second outside of her own course record in 35:41 In second place it was Italy's Francesca Ghelfi in 39:16 and in third was last year’s winner with the top six all finishing within 90 seconds of each other It was no surprise to find Aymonod coming out on top – his third victory here in a row – in 31:40 Italy's Tiziano Moia was second in 32:18 and Nadir Maguet completed the Italian clean sweep in 32:40 Finishing behind Aymonod and Mayr in the overall short uphill category at the end of the series are Njeru and Slovenia's Mojca Koligar in the women's standings and Moia and his fellow Italian Andrea Rostan in the men's standings Britain's Charlotte Morgan and Hungary's Sandor Szabo claim the runner-up spots with Italy's Alice Gaggi and Kenya's Geoffrey Gikuni Ndungu placing third Women1 Joyce Muthoni Njeru (KEN)2 Charlotte Morgan (GBR)3 Alice Gaggi (ITA) Men1 Henri Aymonod (GBR)2 Sandor Szabo (HUN)3 Geoffrey Gikuni Ndungu (KEN) Women1 Andrea Mayr (AUT)2 Joyce Muthoni Njeru (KEN)3 Mojca Koligar (SLO) Men1 Henri Aymonod (ITA)2 Tiziano Moia (ITA)3 Andrea Rostan (ITA) Women1 Joyce Muthoni Njeru (KEN)2 Lucy Wambui Murigi (KEN)3 Alice Gaggi (ITA) Men1 Geoffrey Gikuni Ndungu (KEN)2 Sandor Szabo (HUN)3 Henri Aymonod (ITA) Women1 Charlotte Morgan (GBR)2 Marcela Vasinova (CZE)3 Belen Perez (ESP) Men1 Raul Criado (ESP)2 Peter Frano (SVK)3 Kamil Lesniak (POL) Full results Calendar announced for 2021 WMRA World Cup Morgan and Criado secure WMRA World Cup serie.. When the World Mountain Running Championships in Thailand was postponed to February 2022 the World Mountain Running Association (WMRA) were keen to make an international competition happen at the end of the 2021 season WMRA president Jonathan Wyatt thanked the organisers of Val Bregaglia Trail for staging this special edition of the race and for pulling the whole thing together in just over six weeks He also thanked the athletes for their commitment to training and qualifying for the competition and for travelling to Chiavenna So we’d waited a long time for another international competition to come around and expectations were high A total of 100 athletes from 15 countries stood on the start line on October 31 eager to compete at the highest level on this fast 19km course with 660m of ascent In the women’s race it was Scotland’s Scout Adkin and England’s Kate Maltby who struck out at the front At the 4.5km point Adkin was narrowly ahead and they were being chased by Italian Francesca Ghelfi in the men’s race two athletes tried to stamp their authority on it from the start and it was Lengel Lolkurraru of Kenya and Filimon Abraham of Germany with Czech athlete Jachim Kovar 40 seconds back At the 10km point little had changed at the front Adkin and Maltby were together and Italian Alice Gaggi had caught up to Ghelfi Lolkurraru and Abraham remained at the front of the men’s race with Kovar still leading the chase but by this point Timotej Becan of Slovenia and Chris Richards of England were also pushing hard for the podium It was the next time check at 15.8km where things had started to change It was now Ghelfi who was leading the women’s race and she had started to stretch out a gap of 45 seconds over Adkin while Gaggi was also still in contention for the podium just 12 seconds behind Maltby In the men’s race Lolkurraru was leading by five seconds from Abraham and it was Becan who lay in third So who would we see arriving in the town square in Chiavenna first having stretched out a lead of just over a minute from Lolkurraru in the final 5km Lolkurraru took the silver in 1:19.48 and Becan bronze in 1:22.10 Becan beat fourth placed Daniel Pattis by just one second in a sprint finish In the women’s race Ghelfi hung on to take the gold for Italy in 1:34:01 whereas it was Hanna Grober of Germany who came through for the bronze in 1:35:51 Gaggi was just five seconds behind in fourth and Maltby claimed fifth in 1:36:59 In the team competition it was a win for England’s women with Italy second and the Czech Republic third Wyatt said: “It is with great pleasure that the WMRA are able to put together an event in the space of only six weeks where athletes could compete for their country and our WMRA and World Athletics members can join after two years without a World Championships for our senior athletes "The races have been hard and the competition exciting and it is a pleasure to hear again the national anthems of the winning teams and individuals once again for a senior mountain running competition The WMRA would like to thank the services of the town of Chiavenna and their superb organisation team as well as the support we have received from the Italian Athletics Federation.” For results, CLICK HERE » For the latest athletics news, events coverage and updates, check out the AW homepage and our social media channels on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Natasha Cockram wins Los Angeles Marathon - weekly round-up Kenya’s Lengen Lolkurraru finished second overall  in the World Mountain Running Association (WMRA) Nations Cup in Chiavenna Germany’s Filimon Abraham placed first in a time of 1 hour 18 minutes 29 seconds with Lolkurraru clocking a time of 1 hour 19 minutes 48 seconds Lolkurraru and Abraham remained at the front of the 19km race with Jachym Kovar of the Czech Republic still leading the chase but by this point Timotej Becan of Slovenia and Chris Richards of England were also pushing hard for the podium Lolkurraru was leading by a very narrow margin of five seconds from Abraham At the finish line in the town square in Chiavenna it was Abraham who was first to arrive having stretched out a lead of just over a minute from Lolkurraru over the final 5km while Lolkurraru took silver in 1:19:48 and Becan bronze in 1:22:10