Making Sensors, Making Sense, Making Stimuli: The State of the Art in Wearables Research from ISWC 2019

The International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC) has been the leading research venue for wearable technology research since 1997. This year, the 23rd ISWC was held in London, UK from Sept 9-13th. Following on the last 8 years of successful collaboration, ISWC was co-located with the 2019 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp)

Research on Wearable Technologies for Learning: A Systematic Review

A good amount of research has explored the use of wearables for educational or learning purposes. We have now reached a point when much literature can be found on that topic, but few attempts have been made to make sense of that literature from a holistic perspective. This paper presents a systematic review of the literature on wearables for learning. Literature was sourced from conferences and journals pertaining to technology and education, and through an ad hoc search. Our review focuses on identifying the ways that wearables have been used to support learning and provides perspectives on that issue from a historical dimension, and with regards to the types of wearables used, the populations targeted, and the settings addressed. Seven different ways of how wearables have been used to support learning were identified. We propose a framework identifying five main components that have been addressed in existing research on how wearables can support learning and present our interpretations of unaddressed research directions based on our review results

Design and Effect of Continuous Wearable Tactile Displays

Our sense of touch is one of our core senses and while not as information rich as sight and hearing, it tethers us to reality. Our skin is the largest sensory organ in our body and we rely on it so much that we don\u27t think about it most of the time. Tactile displays - with the exception of actuators for notifications on smartphones and smartwatches - are currently understudied and underused. Currently tactile cues are mostly used in smartphones and smartwatches to notify the user of an incoming call or text message. Specifically continuous displays - displays that do not just send one notification but stay active for an extended period of time and continuously communicate information - are rarely studied. This thesis aims at exploring the utilization of our vibration perception to create continuous tactile displays. Transmitting a continuous stream of tactile information to a user in a wearable format can help elevate tactile displays from being mostly used for notifications to becoming more like additional senses enabling us to perceive our environment in new ways. This work provides a serious step forward in design, effect and use of continuous tactile displays and their use in human-computer interaction. The main contributions include: Exploration of Continuous Wearable Tactile Interfaces This thesis explores continuous tactile displays in different contexts and with different types of tactile information systems. The use-cases were explored in various domains for tactile displays - Sports, Gaming and Business applications. The different types of continuous tactile displays feature one- or multidimensional tactile patterns, temporal patterns and discrete tactile patterns. Automatic Generation of Personalized Vibration Patterns In this thesis a novel approach of designing vibrotactile patterns without expert knowledge by leveraging evolutionary algorithms to create personalized vibration patterns - is described. This thesis presents the design of an evolutionary algorithm with a human centered design generating abstract vibration patterns. The evolutionary algorithm was tested in a user study which offered evidence that interactive generation of abstract vibration patterns is possible and generates diverse sets of vibration patterns that can be recognized with high accuracy. Passive Haptic Learning for Vibration Patterns Previous studies in passive haptic learning have shown surprisingly strong results for learning Morse Code. If these findings could be confirmed and generalized, it would mean that learning a new tactile alphabet could be made easier and learned in passing. Therefore this claim was investigated in this thesis and needed to be corrected and contextualized. A user study was conducted to study the effects of the interaction design and distraction tasks on the capability to learn stimulus-stimulus-associations with Passive Haptic Learning. This thesis presents evidence that Passive Haptic Learning of vibration patterns induces only a marginal learning effect and is not a feasible and efficient way to learn vibration patterns that include more than two vibrations. Influence of Reference Frames for Spatial Tactile Stimuli Designing wearable tactile stimuli that contain spatial information can be a challenge due to the natural body movement of the wearer. An important consideration therefore is what reference frame to use for spatial cues. This thesis investigated allocentric versus egocentric reference frames on the wrist and compared them for induced cognitive load, reaction time and accuracy in a user study. This thesis presents evidence that using an allocentric reference frame drastically lowers cognitive load and slightly lowers reaction time while keeping the same accuracy as an egocentric reference frame, making a strong case for the utilization of allocentric reference frames in tactile bracelets with several tactile actuators

Exploring the Usability of Game-Based Virtual Reality for Development of Procedural Skills in Undergraduate Nursing Students

Providing safe, high quality patient care requires that undergraduate nursing students learn and apply extensive content knowledge as they also begin to develop clinical judgment. Nursing students must learn several procedural skills and be ready to remember and competently perform these skills when the need arises during patient care. Some procedures require strict adherence to aseptic technique in order to protect patients from hospital-acquired infections. Consequently, nurse educators are challenged to find innovative and interactive ways to help students develop and remember these important fundamental skills while ensuring patient safety. This study used a mixed methods design to explore the usability of, and user-reaction to, a game-based virtual reality (VR) system. The unique system combines headgear and haptics to place the nursing student in a patient’s room in order to practice inserting a urinary catheter virtually. The study also compared control and experimental participants’ time-on-task, number of procedures completed in one hour, and ability to demonstrate aseptic technique during urinary catheter insertion two weeks post-practice session. All study participants were given one hour to practice catheter insertion, either on a task trainer or virtually. User reactions to the VR game were observed during gameplay and collected via survey immediately after each individual VR game practice session. Subjects rated the system solidly in the Acceptable range using the System Usability Survey (Brooke, 1996) and between Good and Excellent when including a comparative adjective rating scale (Bangor, Kortum, & Miller, 2009). Inclusion of minimal game elements (points and a timer) motivated participants to continue to practice in order to improve their scores and procedure completion time, as well as engage in competition against their peers. Subjects in the experimental group spent more time practicing and completed more procedures than subjects in the control group and rated the experience as highly engaging and enjoyable. The pass rate at two week follow-up catheter insertion demonstration was 60% for both groups. Results of this study suggest that combining VR technology with game-based learning provides an innovative and useful way for students to practice procedural skills prior to performing the procedure on patients. The next iteration of the system will include an emphasis on providing clearer feedback to promote more accurate practice and should then be tested on larger numbers of students at multiple sites

The People Inside

Our collection begins with an example of computer vision that cuts through time and bureaucratic opacity to help us meet real people from the past. Buried in thousands of files in the National Archives of Australia is evidence of the exclusionary “White Australia” policies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which were intended to limit and discourage immigration by non-Europeans. Tim Sherratt and Kate Bagnall decided to see what would happen if they used a form of face-detection software made ubiquitous by modern surveillance systems and applied it to a security system of a century ago. What we get is a new way to see the government documents, not as a source of statistics but, Sherratt and Bagnall argue, as powerful evidence of the people affected by racism

Strengthening Clinical Knowledge: Repeating High Fidelity Patient Simulation

The clinical environment provides important learning opportunities for health care professions, especially nursing students. The clinical environment offers students a social learning experience not available in the classroom. Providing safe and competent patient care is a critical component of nursing education; however, approaches to preparing nursing students for practice remains relatively unchanged for the past 50 years (Gonzalez & Kardong-Edgren, 2017). Technological advances, increased imperatives for patient safety, and emphasis on evidence informed interventions means that traditional teaching strategies for preparing nursing students for clinical practice need to evolve to improve care outcomes while ensuring patient safety. High fidelity patient simulation (HFPS) is a teaching strategy increasingly used by nurse educators to provide students with opportunities to practice nursing care without risking patient injury. As in clinical education, debriefing and feedback are key elements in the development of clinical competence and mastery learning in HPFS (Taras & Everett, 2017). Many nursing programs have integrated HFPS into their curricula as a replacement or compliment to clinical practice with little research on the philosophical and pedagogical underpinnings (Harder, 2010; Schiavenato, 2009). This study used qualitative methodologies to explore the value of repeating the HFPS scenario after debriefing as a pedagogical strategy for maximizing students’ learning. Two focus groups consisting of second and fourth year undergraduate nursing students’ shared their perceptions on repeated the HFPS scenario after debriefing as a pedagogical strategy for learning. Drawing on Vygotsky’s (1978) Sociocultural Theory, Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Cycle, and the National League for Nursing/Jeffries Simulation Model (2012) the findings revealed six (6) themes: developing competence, teamwork, cueing, anxiety, making mistakes, and feedback. Participants reported repeating the scenario reduced their anxiety and stress, while allowing them to focus on using critical thinking skills more effectively when providing patient care

A COGNITIVE APPROACH TO BENACERRAF’S DILEMMA

One of the important challenges in the philosophy of mathematics is to account for the se­ mantics of sentences that express mathematical propositions while simultaneously explaining our access to their contents. This is Benacerraf’s Dilemma. In this dissertation, I argue that cognitive science furnishes new tools by means of which we can make progress on this problem. The foundation of the solution, I argue, must be an ontologically realist, albeit non-platonist, conception of mathematical reality. The semantic portion of the problem can be addressed by accepting a Chomskyan conception of natural languages and a matching internalist, mentalist and nativist view of semantics. A helpful perspective on the epistemic aspect of the puzzle can be gained by translating Kurt Godel’s neo-Kantian conception of the nature of mathematics and its objects into modern, cognitive term

Formative Research on an Instructional Design Theory for Virtual Patients in Clinical Education: A Pressure Ulcer Prevention Clinical Reasoning Case

Despite advances in health care over the past decades, medical errors and omissions remain significant threats to patient safety and health. A large number of these mistakes are made by trainees, persons who are just beginning to build the case-based experiences that will transform them from novices to expert practitioners. Clinicians use both intuitive and deductive problem-solving skills in caring for patients and they acquire expertise in applying these skills through interaction with many and varied cases. The contemporary heath care environment, with decreased lengths of stay for patients and reduced duty hours for trainees, makes getting optimal patient exposure difficult. Virtual patients (VPs), online, interactive patient cases, may help close the case exposure gap. Evidence has shown that VPs improve clinical reasoning skills, but no formal instructional design theory of VPs has been advanced. The goal was to conduct formative research to develop an instructional design theory of VPs to help novice clinicians cultivate clinical reasoning and diagnostic skills. The instructional design theory, goal-based scenarios (GBS), grounded in the learning theory, Case-based Reasoning, provided methods that promised to be appropriate to the goal. An existing, two-module, multimedia VP, Matt Lane, A Pressure Ulcer Prevention Virtual Patient, was tested with 10 medical trainees to determine which methods of GBS it incorporated and which of its methods were not part of GBS. Leaners\u27 experience of what worked and didn\u27t work to promote learning in the VP was analyzed. The VP was found to incorporate all GBS methods and one significant method, the Life Model, that was not part of GBS. The Life Model Method involved replicating, with a high degree of fidelity, the experiences of a real patient in creating the VP scenario. Recommendations for customization of GBS for VPs included more explicit advertisement of learning goals and leverage of Internet search engines to provide just-in-time resources to support problem-solving. Incorporation of the Life Model was also recommended along with the Simplifying Conditions Method from Elaboration Theory to manage the complexity inherent in the Life Model. The resultant, enhanced GBS theory may be particularly relevant in teaching patient-centered care

From Minimalism to Performance Art: Chris Burden, 1967–1971

This dissertation was conceived as an addendum to two self-published catalogs that American artist Chris Burden released, covering the years 1971–1977. It looks in-depth at the formative work the artist produced in college and graduate school, including minimalist sculpture, interactive environments, and performance art. Burden’s work is herewith examined in four chapters, each of which treats one or more related works, dividing the artist’s early career into developmental stages. In light of a wealth of new information about Burden and the atmosphere in which he was working in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this dissertation examines the artist’s work in relation to West Coast Minimalism, the Light and Space Movement, Environments, and Institutional Critique, above and beyond his well-known contribution to performance art, which is also covered herein. The dissertation also analyzes the social contexts in which Burden worked as having informed his practice, from the beaches of Southern California, to rock festivals and student protest on campus, and eventually out to the countercultural communes. The studies contained in the individual chapters demonstrate that close readings of Burden’s work can open up to formal and art-historical trends, as well as social issues that can deepen our understanding of these and later works. Benefitting from access to the artist’s estate, as well as archives collected at various institutions in Southern California, this dissertation is the first authoritative coverage of Chris Burden’s early career

Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future : The Potential of Digital Archaeology

Mobilizing the Past is a collection of 20 articles that explore the use and impact of mobile digital technology in archaeological field practice. The detailed case studies present in this volume range from drones in the Andes to iPads at Pompeii, digital workflows in the American Southwest, and examples of how bespoke, DIY, and commercial software provide solutions and craft novel challenges for field archaeologists. The range of projects and contexts ensures that Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future is far more than a state-of-the-field manual or technical handbook. Instead, the contributors embrace the growing spirit of critique present in digital archaeology. This critical edge, backed by real projects, systems, and experiences, gives the book lasting value as both a glimpse into present practices as well as the anxieties and enthusiasm associated with the most recent generation of mobile digital tools. This book emerged from a workshop funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities held in 2015 at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. The workshop brought together over 20 leading practitioners of digital archaeology in the U.S. for a weekend of conversation. The papers in this volume reflect the discussions at this workshop with significant additional content. Starting with an expansive introduction and concluding with a series of reflective papers, this volume illustrates how tablets, connectivity, sophisticated software, and powerful computers have transformed field practices and offer potential for a radically transformed discipline.https://dc.uwm.edu/arthist_mobilizingthepast/1000/thumbnail.jp