Holdable Haptic Device for 4-DOF Motion Guidance

Hand-held haptic devices can allow for greater freedom of motion and larger workspaces than traditional grounded haptic devices. They can also provide more compelling haptic sensations to the users' fingertips than many wearable haptic devices because reaction forces can be distributed over a larger area of skin far away from the stimulation site. This paper presents a hand-held kinesthetic gripper that provides guidance cues in four degrees of freedom (DOF). 2-DOF tangential forces on the thumb and index finger combine to create cues to translate or rotate the hand. We demonstrate the device's capabilities in a three-part user study. First, users moved their hands in response to haptic cues before receiving instruction or training. Then, they trained on cues in eight directions in a forced-choice task. Finally, they repeated the first part, now knowing what each cue intended to convey. Users were able to discriminate each cue over 90% of the time. Users moved correctly in response to the guidance cues both before and after the training and indicated that the cues were easy to follow. The results show promise for holdable kinesthetic devices in haptic feedback and guidance for applications such as virtual reality, medical training, and teleoperation.Comment: Submitted to IEEE World Haptics Conference 201

New advances in amblyopia therapy I: Binocular therapies and pharmacologic augmentation

Amblyopia therapy options have traditionally been limited to penalisation of the non-amblyopic eye with either patching or pharmaceutical penalisation. Solid evidence, mostly from the Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group, has validated both number of hours a day of patching and days per week of atropine use. The use of glasses alone has also been established as a good first-line therapy for both anisometropic and strabismic amblyopia. Unfortunately, visual acuity equalisation or even improvement is not always attainable with these methods. Additionally, non-compliance with prescribed therapies contributes to treatment failures, with data supporting difficulty adhering to full treatment sessions. Interest in alternative therapies for amblyopia treatment has long been a topic of interest among researchers and clinicians alike. Incorporating new technology with an understanding of the biological basis of amblyopia has led to enthusiasm for binocular treatment of amblyopia. Early work on perceptual learning as well as more recent enthusiasm for iPad-based dichoptic training have each generated interesting and promising data for vision improvement in amblyopes. Use of pharmaceutical augmentation of traditional therapies has also been investigated. Several different drugs with unique mechanisms of action are thought to be able to neurosensitise the brain and enhance responsiveness to amblyopia therapy. No new treatment has emerged from currently available evidence as superior to the traditional therapies in common practice today. But ongoing investigation into the use of both new technology and the understanding of the neural basis of amblyopia promises alternate or perhaps better cures in the future.</jats:p

Emergency Management Training and Exercises for Transportation Agency Operations, MTI Report 09-17

Training and exercises are an important part of emergency management. Plans are developed based on threat assessment, but they are not useful unless staff members are trained on how to use the plan, and then practice that training. Exercises are also essential for ensuring that the plan is effective, and outcomes from exercises are used to improve the plan. Exercises have been an important part of gauging the preparedness of response organizations since Civil Defense days when full-scale exercises often included the community. Today there are various types of exercises that can be used to evaluate the preparedness of public agencies and communities: seminars, drills, tabletop exercises, functional exercises, facilitated exercises and full-scale exercises. Police and fire agencies have long used drills and full-scale exercises to evaluate the ability of staff to use equipment, protocols and plans. Transit and transportation agencies have seldom been included in these plans, and have little guidance for their participation in the exercises. A research plan was designed to determine whether urban transit systems are holding exercises, and whether they have the training and guidance documents that they need to be successful. The main research question was whether there was a need for a practical handbook to guide the development of transit system exercises

Does Telemedical Support of First Responders Improve Guideline Adherence in an Offshore Emergency Scenario? A Simulator-Based Prospective Study

OBJECTIVE: To investigate, in a simulator-based prospective study, whether telemedical support improves quality of emergency first response (performance) by medical non-professionals to being non-inferior to medical professionals. SETTING: In a simulated offshore wind power plant, duos (teams) of offshore engineers and teams of paramedics conducted the primary survey of a simulated patient. PARTICIPANTS: 38 offshore engineers and 34 paramedics were recruited by the general email invitation. INTERVENTION: Teams (randomised by lot) were supported by transmission technology and a remote emergency physician in Berlin. OUTCOME MEASURES: From video recordings, performance (17 item checklist) and required time (up to 15 min) were quantified by expert rating for analysis. Differences were analysed using two-sided exact Mann-Whitney U tests for independent measures, non-inferiority was analysed using Schuirmann one-sided test. The significance level of 5 % was Holm-Bonferroni adjusted in each family of pairwise comparisons. RESULTS: Nine teams of engineers with, nine without, nine teams of paramedics with and eight without support completed the task. Two experts quantified endpoints, insights into rater dependence were gained. Supported engineers outperformed unsupported engineers (p<0.01), insufficient evidence was found for paramedics (p=0.11). Without support, paramedics outperformed engineers (p<0.01). Supported engineers' performance was non-inferior (at one item margin) to that by unsupported paramedics (p=0.03). Supported groups were slower than unsupported groups (p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: First response to medical emergencies in offshore wind farms with substantially delayed professional care may be improved by telemedical support. Future work should test our result during additional scenarios and explore interdisciplinary and ecosystem aspects of this support. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: DRKS0001437

Virtual and Augmented Reality in Basic and Advanced Life Support Training

The use of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) for life support training is increasing. These technologies provide an immersive experience that supports learning in a safe and controlled environment. This review focuses on the use of AR and VR for emergency care training for health care providers, medical students, and nonprofessionals. In particular, we analyzed (1) serious games, nonimmersive games, both single-player and multiplayer; (2) VR tools ranging from semi-immersive to immersive virtual and mixed reality; and (3) AR applications. All the toolkits have been investigated in terms of application goals (training, assessment, or both), simulated procedures, and skills. The main goal of this work is to summarize and organize the findings of studies coming from multiple research areas in order to make them accessible to all the professionals involved in medical simulation. The analysis of the state-of-the-art technologies reveals that tools and studies related to the multiplayer experience, haptic feedback, and evaluation of user’s manual skills in the foregoing health care-related environments are still limited and require further investigation. Also, there is an additional need to conduct studies aimed at assessing whether AR/VR-based systems are superior or, at the minimum, comparable to traditional training methods

VR supported self-help treatment for adolescents with psychosis

Psychosis is a severe psychological condition that affects some people, including adolescents. Unfortunately, treating psychosis and psychotic disorders takes a long time. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and CBT for treating psychosis (CBTp) promise the most effective treatment; however, it is too long, considerably affects patients’ individual lives, and involves high individual costs. Using Virtual Reality (VR) technology, behavioral experiments in CBTp can be carried out during therapy sessions by exposing the patient to simulated social scenarios that they find challenging. This CBT-supported process promises improvements in increased patients’ experiences and allows patient gains in their regular lives. This report illustrates the development based on a VR-assisted treatment protocol currently being developed and clinically tested at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway, and the possibilities of a VR self-help application as a supplement to clinical sessions. Furthermore, patients will be able to perform different social-training exercises in familiar home conditions using the therapists’ defined guidelines prepared beforehand. This project application uses VR technology and speech recognition to reach this goal of self-help treatment. With the help of speech recognition, the VR application can understand what the patient is saying, provide appropriate feedback, and assure a flow in the conversation through the different scenarios. An iterative mixed method, including system usability tests and follow-up interviews with clinical domain experts, was conducted to test this application’s usability and feasibility. First testing iterations’ System Usability Scale (SUS) results were positive and indicated concrete issues for improvement. Moreover, the final testing iteration delivered excellent results, showing the possibility of using a VR-supported self-help treatment for psychosis. Psychosis is a severe psychological condition that affects some people, including adolescents. Unfortunately, treating psychosis and psychotic disorders takes a long time. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and CBT for treating psychosis (CBTp) promise the most effective treatment; however, it is too long, considerably affects patients’ individual lives, and involves high individual costs. Using Virtual Reality (VR) technology, behavioral experiments in CBTp can be carried out during therapy sessions by exposing the patient to simulated social scenarios that they find challenging. This CBT-supported process promises improvements in increased patients’ experiences and allows patient gains in their regular lives. This report illustrates the development based on a VR-assisted treatment protocol currently being developed and clinically tested at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway, and the possibilities of a VR self-help application as a supplement to clinical sessions. Furthermore, patients will be able to perform different social-training exercises in familiar home conditions using the therapists’ defined guidelines prepared beforehand. This research application uses VR technology and speech recognition to reach this goal of self-help treatment. With the help of speech recognition, the VR application can understand what the patient is saying, provide appropriate feedback, and assure a flow in the conversation through the different scenarios. An iterative mixed method, including system usability tests and follow-up interviews with clinical domain experts, was conducted to test this application’s usability and feasibility. First testing iterations’ System Usability Scale (SUS) results were positive and indicated concrete issues for improvement. Moreover, the final testing iteration delivered excellent results, showing the possibility of using a VR-supported self-help treatment for psychosis.Masteroppgave i Programutvikling samarbeid med HVLPROG399MAMN-PRO

Augmented Reality Farm MAPPER Development: Lessons Learned from an App Designed to Improve Rural Emergency Response

Fire departments have right-of-entry to most commercial industrial sites and preemptively map them to identify the onsite resources and hazards they need to promptly and safely respond to an emergency event. This is not the case for private farms. Emergency responders are blind to resources and hazards prior to arrival and must spend critical minutes locating them during an emergency response at a farm location. The original 2013 Farm Mapping to Assist, Protect and Prepare Emergency Responders (Farm MAPPER) project was undertaken to develop a method to give emergency responders an up-to-date view of on-farm hazard information to safely and efficiently conduct emergency response activities on private agricultural operations. In 2017, an augmented reality version of Farm MAPPER was developed to combine the technological advantages of geographic information system-based data points with a heads-up display and graphical overlay of superimposed hazard imagery and informative icons. The development and testing of this iOS- and Android-ready prototype uncovered lessons learned applicable to other mobilebased apps targeting farmers, ranchers, and rural populations faced with limited or inconsistent mobile internet connectivity

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First Responder Training Transfer: Does Training Delivery Method Matter?

Technology-based training solutions are increasingly being utilized by organizations to achieve training objectives at lower costs as compared to traditional instructor-led training (ILT). This is especially true for the Nation’s first responder agencies that continue to face difficulties related to expanding training requirements that are pitted against limitations in agency financial and human resources. Despite the proliferation in the use of technology-based training solutions, such as web-based training (WBT), there is little research within the first responder community as to whether WBT is as effective as ILT in enabling trainees to transfer essential knowledge, skills, abilities (KSAs) from a training course to daily job settings. This study addressed this research gap through secondary data analysis of ILT and WBT courses developed by the Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium (RDPC), a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) training provider, and subsequently delivered to first responders in rural communities across the United States. The secondary data analyzed within this study was originally obtained through the RDPC Level 3 Course Evaluation Program, which evaluates the training effectives of delivered courses. Although the RDPC program captures training transfer-related data for its courses, a comparative analysis of training delivery method has not been completed. Therefore, this analysis enabled the determination as to whether training transfer within the first responder community is affected by the training delivery method as well as other trainee characteristics (e.g., responder discipline and geographical region). Overall, the research findings suggest that training transfer is unaffected by training delivery method (ILT and WBT within this study) within the first responder community. The study results are important for first responder agencies in light of budget limitations, which tend to be exaggerated in small and rural areas. For example, the results illustrate that first responder agencies can utilize cost-effective WBT and experience no drop-off in training transfer. This finding provides justification to training providers, such as the RDPC, to invest in WBT course development and expanded delivery mechanisms to help provide training in more effective and efficient ways, which is important in small, rural, and remote communities. Lastly, this research provides valuable insight for both the first responder and academic communities by presenting information to help ensure the right trainee takes the right training at the right time for the right investment

Emerging Technology Adoption and Use : Consolidated Assignments from Spring 2020

Digitalization changes the world. Information systems, software applications and other technologies are in a central role in this change. They enable new work practices and processes, new business models and opportunities, initiate changes in how technologies are used, perceived and interpreted, and ultimately force individuals, organizations, and even societies at large to respond to those changes. Individuals, organizations, and societies have to somehow transform and adjust their old ways of doing things. Yet, not only technologies drive digital transformation. Increasing amounts of data that is produced by numerous sensors, applications, and systems account for the transformation as well. Such data is gathered and collected, merged together, and analyzed by different methods and tools; by using artificial intelligence, data analytics, or data science. The sense-making of such versatile data is of importance because not only can it be used to improve decision-making at workplaces but also, it can be utilized for the benefit of individuals and societies, in organizational and non-work settings. These views, transformation and smartness, pose several questions for information system (IS) research. In general, we might ask what actually is the smartness of individuals, organizations, or a society. We can even ask whether stakeholders possess the required abilities, skills and competences to enable and support the change. These, and other related questions arise due to fast evolving landscape of information technology, and information and technology. The nuanced understanding of Smart Transformation in IS has become even more critical due to governmental and organizational programs that foster smartness. This report summarizes research reports of students attending “Emerging Technology Adoption and Use” course in Tampere University. During the course, we focused on three emerging technologies. Extended Reality Blockchain Artificial Intelligence Each group collaborated on finding a common topic of interest. They focused on the adoption and/or use of a particular emerging technology in a setting of their own choosing. As you are about to see, the findings of each group emphasize different perspectives. These range from the negative effects of technology use to the opportunities and delights of information systems