Assessing the implementation of user-centred design standards on assistive technology for persons with visual impairments: a systematic review

Despite scientific and technological advances in the field of assistive technology (AT) for people with visual impairment (VI), technological designs are frequently based on a poor understanding of the physical and social context of use, resulting in devices that are less than optimal for their intended beneficiaries. To resolve this situation, user-centred approaches in the development process of AT have been widely adopted in recent years. However, there is a lack of systematization on the application of this approach. This systematic review registered in PROSPERO (CRD42022307466), assesses the application of the ISO 9241-210 human-centred design principles in allegedly “user-centred designed” AT developments for persons with VI (see Supplementary PROSPERO Protocol). The results point to a wide variation of the depth of understanding of user needs, a poor characterization of the application of the User Centred Design (UCD) approach in the initial design phases or in the early prototyping, and a vague description of user feedback and device iteration. Among the principles set out in ISO 9241-210, the application of 5.6: “the design team includes multidisciplinary skills and perspectives” is the one for which the least evidence is found. The results show there is not enough evidence to fully assess the impact of UCD in (1) promoting innovation regarding AT products and practices, and (2) Judging if AT produced following such standards is leading to better user access, wellbeing outcomes and satisfaction. To address this gap it is necessary to, first, generate better implementation of UCD in AT development and second, to strengthen evidence regarding the implementation and outcomes of using UCD for AT. To better engage with the realities of persons with VI, we propose capacity building across development teams regarding UCD, its principles and components; better planning for UCD implementation; and cross-fertilization across engineering disciplines and social and clinical science.Systematic Review Registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?RecordID=307466 PROSPERO (CRD42022307466)

Relajación dieléctrica y dependiente de la temperatura del silicio poroso preparado mediante grabado electroquímico

In the electronic devices based on porous silicon (PS) is important understand the physical mechanisms governing the electrical behaviour in the PS/c-Si structure. In order to investigate the conduction mechanisms in the PS/p-Si heterojunction, we prepared the PS by electrochemical etching. The temperature dependence of the porous silicon was studied in the range from 300 K to 393 K, in a range until 10 V. On the other hand, the AC electrical measurements were performed from 5 Hz to 107 Hz. The calculated activation energies were close to 0,42 eV at 2 V. The physical mechanisms involved in the Au/porous silicon contacts and porous silicon/p-Si interface can be obtained from the voltage dependence of the fitting parameters according to electrical model circuits in DC and AC. We found the dielectric behavior of the sample; the relaxation region is presented at high frequenc

High sensitivity field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometer

A high sensitivity field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometer (FAIMS) was designed, fabricated, and tested. The main components of the system are a 10.6 eV UV photoionization source, an ion filter driven by a high voltage/high frequency n-MOS inverter circuit, and a low noise ion detector. The ion filter electronics are capable to generate square waveforms with peak-to-peak voltages up to 1000 V at frequencies up to 1 MHz with adjustable duty cycles. The ion detector current amplifier has a gain up to 1012 V/A with an effective equivalent input noise level down to about 1 fA/Hz1/2 during operation with the ion filter at the maximum voltage and frequency. The FAIMS system was characterized by detecting different standard chemical compounds. Additionally, we investigated the use of a synchronous modulation/demodulation technique to improve the signal-to-noise ratio in FAIMS measurements. In particular, we implemented the modulation of the compensation voltage with the synchronous demodulation of the ion current. The analysis of the measurements at low concentration levels led to an extrapolated limit of detection for acetone of 10 ppt with an averaging time of 1 s

Assessing the implementation of user-centred design standards on assistive technology for persons with visual impairments: a systematic review

Despite scientific and technological advances in the field of assistive technology (AT) for people with visual impairment (VI), technological designs are frequently based on a poor understanding of the physical and social context of use, resulting in devices that are less than optimal for their intended beneficiaries. To resolve this situation, user-centred approaches in the development process of AT have been widely adopted in recent years. However, there is a lack of systematization on the application of this approach. This systematic review registered in PROSPERO (CRD42022307466), assesses the application of the ISO 9241-210 human-centred design principles in allegedly “user-centred designed” AT developments for persons with VI (see Supplementary PROSPERO Protocol ). The results point to a wide variation of the depth of understanding of user needs, a poor characterization of the application of the User Centred Design (UCD) approach in the initial design phases or in the early prototyping, and a vague description of user feedback and device iteration. Among the principles set out in ISO 9241-210, the application of 5.6: “the design team includes multidisciplinary skills and perspectives” is the one for which the least evidence is found. The results show there is not enough evidence to fully assess the impact of UCD in (1) promoting innovation regarding AT products and practices, and (2) Judging if AT produced following such standards is leading to better user access, wellbeing outcomes and satisfaction. To address this gap it is necessary to, first, generate better implementation of UCD in AT development and second, to strengthen evidence regarding the implementation and outcomes of using UCD for AT. To better engage with the realities of persons with VI, we propose capacity building across development teams regarding UCD, its principles and components; better planning for UCD implementation; and cross-fertilization across engineering disciplines and social and clinical science. Systematic Review Registration https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?RecordID=307466 PROSPERO (CRD42022307466). </p

International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortiu (INICC) report, data summary of 43 countries for 2007-2012. Device-associated module

We report the results of an International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) surveillance study from January 2007-December 2012 in 503 intensive care units (ICUs) in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. During the 6-year study using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) U.S. National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) definitions for device-associated health care–associated infection (DA-HAI), we collected prospective data from 605,310 patients hospitalized in the INICC's ICUs for an aggregate of 3,338,396 days. Although device utilization in the INICC's ICUs was similar to that reported from ICUs in the U.S. in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals: the pooled rate of central line–associated bloodstream infection in the INICC's ICUs, 4.9 per 1,000 central line days, is nearly 5-fold higher than the 0.9 per 1,000 central line days reported from comparable U.S. ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia was also higher (16.8 vs 1.1 per 1,000 ventilator days) as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (5.5 vs 1.3 per 1,000 catheter days). Frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas isolates to amikacin (42.8% vs 10%) and imipenem (42.4% vs 26.1%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (71.2% vs 28.8%) and imipenem (19.6% vs 12.8%) were also higher in the INICC's ICUs compared with the ICUs of the CDC's NHSN