Exploring content and psychometric validity of newly developed assessment tools for itch and skin pain in atopic dermatitis.

BackgroundAtopic dermatitis (AD) is a common skin disorder characterized by chronic inflammation, altered skin barrier function, and inflammatory cell skin infiltration that decreases health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The study objective was to understand the patient perspective of AD burden and determine suitable patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures.MethodsThis mixed methods study involved the collection of qualitative and quantitative information from adults (≥ 18 years old) and adolescents (12 - 17 years old) with clinician-confirmed AD regarding their experiences of AD symptoms and its impact on HRQoL. The first part of the study included three stages: in-person concept elicitation (CE) interviews, a 2-week daily electronic diary (eDiary) study, and in-person cognitive debriefing (CD) interviews. An Itch numeric rating scale (NRS) (v1.0) and a Skin Pain NRS (v1.0) evaluation during CD interviews required participants to think about their 'worst' itch and 'worst' skin pain in the past 24 h. Other PRO measures allowed for psychometric testing. The second part of the study involved telephone-depth interviews (TDIs) and qualitative feedback from participants who had not participated in the CD interviews. Qualitative data were thematically analyzed. Psychometric evaluation of NRS measures was performed using eDiary data.ResultsIn the CE interviews, itch and/or itching and skin pain were the most prevalent symptoms consistently discussed by participants. Both NRS measures demonstrated strong psychometric reliability and were applicable across ages with suitable concurrent validity. During the CD interviews, some participants focused their answers on their 'average' itch/itching in the past 24 h, rather than their 'worst' itch. Some participants answered the Skin Pain NRS thinking about general pain or other types of pain, rather than skin pain specifically. Consequently, modifications to both measures addressed these issues and re-tested as paper-and-pen versions in subsequent TDIs. Itch NRS (v2.0) modifications helped participants focus on their worst itching. Most participants preferred Skin Pain NRS v2.0b, which included skin pain descriptors.ConclusionsItching and skin pain are the most important and relevant AD symptoms. The Itch NRS (v2.0) and Skin Pain NRS (v2.0b) appear to be appropriate endpoints for the assessment of itching and skin pain severity for clinical trials with adults and adolescents with AD

Design and semantics of form and movement (DeSForM 2006)

Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM) grew from applied research exploring emerging design methods and practices to support new generation product and interface design. The products and interfaces are concerned with: the context of ubiquitous computing and ambient technologies and the need for greater empathy in the pre-programmed behaviour of the ‘machines’ that populate our lives. Such explorative research in the CfDR has been led by Young, supported by Kyffin, Visiting Professor from Philips Design and sponsored by Philips Design over a period of four years (research funding £87k). DeSForM1 was the first of a series of three conferences that enable the presentation and debate of international work within this field: • 1st European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM1), Baltic, Gateshead, 2005, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. • 2nd European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM2), Evoluon, Eindhoven, 2006, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. • 3rd European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM3), New Design School Building, Newcastle, 2007, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. Philips sponsorship of practice-based enquiry led to research by three teams of research students over three years and on-going sponsorship of research through the Northumbria University Design and Innovation Laboratory (nuDIL). Young has been invited on the steering panel of the UK Thinking Digital Conference concerning the latest developments in digital and media technologies. Informed by this research is the work of PhD student Yukie Nakano who examines new technologies in relation to eco-design textiles

Southwest Research Institute assistance to NASA in biomedical areas of the technology utilization program Final report, 1 Feb. 1969 - 24 Aug. 1970

Research progress in technology transfer by NASA Biomedical Application Tea

Sensory Properties in Fusion of Visual/Haptic Stimuli Using Mixed Reality

When we recognize objects, multiple sensory informa-tion (e.g., visual, auditory, and haptic) is used with fusion. For example, both eyes and hands provide rele-vant information about an object’s shape. We investi-gate how sensory stimuli interact with each other. For that purpose, we developed a system that gives hap-tic/visual sensory fusion using a mixed reality tech-nique. Our experiments show that the haptic stimulus seems to be affected by visual stimulus when a dis-crepancy exists between vision and haptic stimuli

Soft, comfortable polymer dry electrodes for high quality ECG and EEG recording

Conventional gel electrodes are widely used for biopotential measurements, despite important drawbacks such as skin irritation, long set-up time and uncomfortable removal. Recently introduced dry electrodes with rigid metal pins overcome most of these problems; however, their rigidity causes discomfort and pain. This paper presents dry electrodes offering high user comfort, since they are fabricated from EPDM rubber containing various additives for optimum conductivity, flexibility and ease of fabrication. The electrode impedance is measured on phantoms and human skin. After optimization of the polymer composition, the skin-electrode impedance is only similar to 10 times larger than that of gel electrodes. Therefore, these electrodes are directly capable of recording strong biopotential signals such as ECG while for low-amplitude signals such as EEG, the electrodes need to be coupled with an active circuit. EEG recordings using active polymer electrodes connected to a clinical EEG system show very promising results: alpha waves can be clearly observed when subjects close their eyes, and correlation and coherence analyses reveal high similarity between dry and gel electrode signals. Moreover, all subjects reported that our polymer electrodes did not cause discomfort. Hence, the polymer-based dry electrodes are promising alternatives to either rigid dry electrodes or conventional gel electrodes

Perception of soundscapes : an interdisciplinary approach

This paper takes an overall view of findings from the Positive Soundscape Project, a large inter-disciplinary soundscapes study. Qualitative fieldwork (soundwalks and focus groups) have found that soundscape perception is influenced by cognitive effects such as the meaning of a soundscape and its components, and how information is conveyed by a soundscape, for example on the behaviour of people within the soundscape. Three significant clusters were found in the language people use to describe soundscapes: sound sources, sound descriptors and soundscape descriptors. Results from listening tests and soundwalks have been integrated to show that the two principal dimensions of soundscape emotional response seem to be calmness and vibrancy. Further, vibrancy seems to have two aspects: organisation of sounds and changes over time. The possible application of the results to soundscape assessment and design are briefly discussed

Parameters for apple quality: and an outline for a new quality concept - part 1 report

In real life it is hard to distinguish between the two life processes, growth and differentiation. We cannot expect one measured parameter to represent only one aspect of vital quality. But for most parameters we can recognise emphases on one or more aspects of the vital quality concept. We made this prelimary classification both by thinking about the concept and by looking at the experimental results. Also the conventional parameters are interpreted as a result of these processes in a more holistic way than usual. We realise that various parameters all concerning the same aspect of our quality concept can show different levels of the aspect. To belong to the same aspect of the quality concept does not automatically mean that their correlation (see annex 14.2) must be high. We still have to get a lot of more experience to validate the parameters’ character. Here we present our first research on this topic, including the unanswered questions and realise that more experimental series will bring more and more certainty. After this first project we cannot say which parameters are so similar that it makes the other redundant. Until now we learned something from every parameter to develop our quality concept. Most inspiring for the new quality concept were the crystallisations, the delayed luminescence and the Bovis-value

Redefining A in RGBA: Towards a Standard for Graphical 3D Printing

Advances in multimaterial 3D printing have the potential to reproduce various visual appearance attributes of an object in addition to its shape. Since many existing 3D file formats encode color and translucency by RGBA textures mapped to 3D shapes, RGBA information is particularly important for practical applications. In contrast to color (encoded by RGB), which is specified by the object's reflectance, selected viewing conditions and a standard observer, translucency (encoded by A) is neither linked to any measurable physical nor perceptual quantity. Thus, reproducing translucency encoded by A is open for interpretation. In this paper, we propose a rigorous definition for A suitable for use in graphical 3D printing, which is independent of the 3D printing hardware and software, and which links both optical material properties and perceptual uniformity for human observers. By deriving our definition from the absorption and scattering coefficients of virtual homogeneous reference materials with an isotropic phase function, we achieve two important properties. First, a simple adjustment of A is possible, which preserves the translucency appearance if an object is re-scaled for printing. Second, determining the value of A for a real (potentially non-homogeneous) material, can be achieved by minimizing a distance function between light transport measurements of this material and simulated measurements of the reference materials. Such measurements can be conducted by commercial spectrophotometers used in graphic arts. Finally, we conduct visual experiments employing the method of constant stimuli, and derive from them an embedding of A into a nearly perceptually uniform scale of translucency for the reference materials.Comment: 20 pages (incl. appendices), 20 figures. Version with higher quality images: https://cloud-ext.igd.fraunhofer.de/s/pAMH67XjstaNcrF (main article) and https://cloud-ext.igd.fraunhofer.de/s/4rR5bH3FMfNsS5q (appendix). Supplemental material including code: https://cloud-ext.igd.fraunhofer.de/s/9BrZaj5Uh5d0cOU/downloa