Instrument-mounted displays for reducing cognitive load during surgical navigation

Purpose Surgical navigation systems rely on a monitor placed in the operating room to relay information. Optimal monitor placement can be challenging in crowded rooms, and it is often not possible to place the monitor directly beside the situs. The operator must split attention between the navigation system and the situs. We present an approach for needle-based interventions to provide navigational feedback directly on the instrument and close to the situs by mounting a small display onto the needle. Methods By mounting a small and lightweight smartwatch display directly onto the instrument, we are able to provide navigational guidance close to the situs and directly in the operator’s field of view, thereby reducing the need to switch the focus of view between the situs and the navigation system. We devise a specific variant of the established crosshair metaphor suitable for the very limited screen space. We conduct an empirical user study comparing our approach to using a monitor and a combination of both. Results Results from the empirical user study show significant benefits for cognitive load, user preference, and general usability for the instrument-mounted display, while achieving the same level of performance in terms of time and accuracy compared to using a monitor. Conclusion We successfully demonstrate the feasibility of our approach and potential benefits. With ongoing technological advancements, instrument-mounted displays might complement standard monitor setups for surgical navigation in order to lower cognitive demands and for improved usability of such systems

Sonification as a reliable alternative to conventional visual surgical navigation

Despite the undeniable advantages of image-guided surgical assistance systems in terms of accuracy, such systems have not yet fully met surgeons' needs or expectations regarding usability, time efficiency, and their integration into the surgical workflow. On the other hand, perceptual studies have shown that presenting independent but causally correlated information via multimodal feedback involving different sensory modalities can improve task performance. This article investigates an alternative method for computer-assisted surgical navigation, introduces a novel four-DOF sonification methodology for navigated pedicle screw placement, and discusses advanced solutions based on multisensory feedback. The proposed method comprises a novel four-DOF sonification solution for alignment tasks in four degrees of freedom based on frequency modulation synthesis. We compared the resulting accuracy and execution time of the proposed sonification method with visual navigation, which is currently considered the state of the art. We conducted a phantom study in which 17 surgeons executed the pedicle screw placement task in the lumbar spine, guided by either the proposed sonification-based or the traditional visual navigation method. The results demonstrated that the proposed method is as accurate as the state of the art while decreasing the surgeon's need to focus on visual navigation displays instead of the natural focus on surgical tools and targeted anatomy during task execution

Leveraging Augmented Reality for Real-time Operational Performance Management

Augmented Reality (AR) projects a virtual overlay onto real space so that the user can see a superimposed image over the real-world background. Although AR has advanced recently and a breadth of applications can be found in practice, they are focused on simple tasks with few examples of more complex work tasks. One area that could benefit from advancing AR technology is operations management, specifically operational performance measurement (OPM); however, a brief review of the literature reveals that this potential application area has not yet been explored. Therefore, the purpose of this work is to investigate the application of AR technology to OPM to improve real-time decision-making and management practice. A systematic literature review was conducted to evaluate the current application areas related to management practices. This review did not identify any studies related to using AR to support OPM, but did identify many applications relevant to management activities that empirically demonstrate the benefit of adoption. The review analyzed the current development in this research area and how it has matured including evaluating the applications discussed in the identified publications to demonstrate the existing gap in the research related to OPM applications. An expert study was then conducted to explore potential challenges and benefits of such a device as well as to operationally define effective decision-making for operations managers. The results of the expert study were leveraged to develop a Design of Experiments based laboratory study to empirically test the effects of an AR supported environment on decision-making effectiveness and operational performance. The results showed that the AR device supported improved operational performance, but did not show a significant effect on participants\u27 perceived decision-making effectiveness. This study contributes to the academic literature on technology-enabled OPM and managerial decision-making as well as providing insights for industry professionals interested in adopting AR to support management functions

How do Smart watches influence the market of luxury watches with particular regard of the buying-reasons.

Ya no es necesario mirar el reloj de pulsera para saber la hora exacta. Los teléfonos inteligentes, el reloj del ordenador o el reloj del automóvil nos informan también sobre la hora. La gente paga miles de euros por un reloj de lujo, aunque podría comprar relojes mucho más económicos, que además cumplen la función de indicar la hora exacta. Hace unos años, los relojes inteligentes entraron en el mercado y ahora la gente puede obtener además datos como la distancia que recorren a pie por día o controlar su sueño... La pregunta es: ¿cómo reaccionarán los clientes de relojes de lujo? La intención de esta tesis, entre otros objetivos, es establecer los diferentes tipos de razones por las que los consumidores tienden a comprar relojes de lujo. Las diferentes razones pueden ser explicadas con la ayuda de modelos y variables psicológicas que facilitan la comprensión de los motivos del comportamiento de compra. En el estudio se trata de explicar la importancia y el significado de identidad de la marca con referencia a la compra de relojes inteligentes y relojes de lujo, iden-tificando los beneficios y características de los relojes inteligentes, que se entienden como productos sustitutivos de los relojes de lujo. Además, se pretende explicar las razones de compra de los relojes inteligentes en comparación con los motivos para comprar relojes de lujo, y averiguar si el cliente típico de relojes de lujo tiene los mismos motivos y razones de compra que el cliente de relojes inteligentes. A través del análisis de la teoría de la actitud y la teoría de la congruencia, con referencia al comportamiento de compra y su influencia en la elección de marca, se establece un modelo de ecuación estructural que responde a los objetivos mencionados. La intención es obtener una comprensión profunda del efecto psico-lógico de las marcas para poder explicar la toma de decisiones de compra de este tipo de productos. Para ello, se han realizado estudios empíricos basados en cues-tionarios anónimos sobre las marcas Apple Watch y Rolex. Se comprueba que la influencia de la intención de elección de marca es mayor en Apple, en comparación con los clientes de Rolex. La norma subjetiva tiene la mayor relevancia con referencia a la intención de elección de marca en Rolex. Además, la congruencia real no es positivamente relevante con respecto a la in-tención de elegir relojes de la marca Rolex; de hecho, la congruencia real del cliente de Rolex es insignificante en comparación con la congruencia ideal. Con referencia a Apple Watch, la congruencia ideal juega el papel más im-portante para la intención de la elección de la marca. La personalidad de la marca del Apple Watch está más cerca del ideal de la persona de prueba, en comparación con la persona de prueba de Rolex. Según este estudio, la congruencia funcional no tiene relevancia positiva con referencia a la intención de elección de marca de Apple Watch. Los criterios rele-vantes para la congruencia funcional para la muestra que se aplican en este estudio son: cómo de bien está fabricado el producto, si es un producto duradero, cómo de alta es la calidad del material de fabricación y cómo se percibe el diseño del producto. Estos criterios,Administración y Dirección de Empresa