Effects of ambient lighting displays on peripheral activity awareness

The emergence of ubiquitous sensing and the Internet of Things (IoT) have inspired the development of “smart” everyday objects, which offer tremendous opportunities for maintaining the quality of life in ambient assisted living (AAL) environments. Inspired by the future possibilities of connected everyday devices, we envision a peripheral activity-based awareness system that captures human activity information and renders this information to enhance context awareness and support social connectedness between the elderly and their caregivers. Leveraging ambient intelligence and IoT technologies, ambient displays can convey activity information in the periphery of our attention. In particular, light has been used as a means to display ambient information and there is scientific evidence that it can enhance well-being, interconnectedness, and improve productivity. In this paper, we undertake two studies, first through an exploratory study we investigate the features of light suitable for conveying subtle activity information within the periphery of the users' attention for promoting context awareness. Also, we examine the preferences, perceptions, and interpretations of ambient lighting configurations of prospective caregiver's for conveying the activity information of older adults. In a second study, we assess the implications of activity awareness through lighting on cognitive performance, moods, and social connectedness. The set-up and design decisions of the second study were partly informed by previous research and by the outcomes of the first experiment. Together, these studies provide additional design guidelines for representing activity information with ambient lighting and highlight potential benefits and usage possibilities for lighting displays within the AAL domain. Furthermore, the results indicate a significant effect of activity awareness on cognitive performance. However, there were no significant effects of activity awareness through lighting on moods and social connectedness. Finally, we discuss the design guidelines and implications of these findings for designing activity-based ambient lighting displays for AAL environments. <br/

Residual Life Distributions from Component Degradation Signals: A Bayesian Approach

Received and accepted Real-time condition monitoring is becoming an important tool in maintenance decision-making. Condition monitoring is the process of collecting real-time sensor information from a functioning device in order to reason about the health of the device. To make effective use of condition information, it is useful to characterize a device degradation signal, a quantity computed from condition information that captures the current state of the device and provides information on how that condition is likely to evolve in the future. If properly modeled, the degradation signal can be used to compute a residual-life distribution for the device being monitored, which can the

Parps: Rapidly Evolving Weapons in the War against Viral Infection

Post-translational protein modifications such as phosphorylation and ubiquitinylation are common molecular targets of conflict between viruses and their hosts. However, the role of other post-translational modifications, such as ADP-ribosylation, in host-virus interactions is less well characterized. ADP-ribosylation is carried out by proteins encoded by the PARP (also called ARTD) gene family. The majority of the 17 human PARP genes are poorly characterized. However, one PARP protein, PARP13/ZAP, has broad antiviral activity and has evolved under positive (diversifying) selection in primates. Such evolution is typical of domains that are locked in antagonistic 'arms races' with viral factors. To identify additional PARP genes that may be involved in host-virus interactions, we performed evolutionary analyses on all primate PARP genes to search for signatures of rapid evolution. Contrary to expectations that most PARP genes are involved in 'housekeeping' functions, we found that nearly one-third of PARP genes are evolving under strong recurrent positive selection. We identified a >300 amino acid disordered region of PARP4, a component of cytoplasmic vault structures, to be rapidly evolving in several mammalian lineages, suggesting this region serves as an important host-pathogen specificity interface. We also found positive selection of PARP9, 14 and 15, the only three human genes that contain both PARP domains and macrodomains. Macrodomains uniquely recognize, and in some cases can reverse, protein mono-ADP-ribosylation, and we observed strong signatures of recurrent positive selection throughout the macro-PARP macrodomains. Furthermore, PARP14 and PARP15 have undergone repeated rounds of gene birth and loss during vertebrate evolution, consistent with recurrent gene innovation. Together with previous studies that implicated several PARPs in immunity, as well as those that demonstrated a role for virally encoded macrodomains in host immune evasion, our evolutionary analyses suggest that addition, recognition and removal of ADP-ribosylation is a critical, underappreciated currency in host-virus conflicts

Interprofessional Consensus Regarding Design Requirements for Liquid-Based Perinatal Life Support (PLS) Technology

Liquid-based perinatal life support (PLS) technology will probably be applied in a first-in-human study within the next decade. Research and development of PLS technology should not only address technical issues, but also consider socio-ethical and legal aspects, its application area, and the corresponding design implications. This paper represents the consensus opinion of a group of healthcare professionals, designers, ethicists, researchers and patient representatives, who have expertise in tertiary obstetric and neonatal care, bio-ethics, experimental perinatal animal models for physiologic research, biomedical modeling, monitoring, and design. The aim of this paper is to provide a framework for research and development of PLS technology. These requirements are considering the possible respective user perspectives, with the aim to co-create a PLS system that facilitates physiological growth and development for extremely preterm born infants

Social hue : a subtle awareness system for connecting the elderly and their caregivers

In this position paper, we propose an unobtrusive solution for improving bonding relations between the elderly and their caregivers, through the Social Hue. The Social Hue is a bidirectional application that is based on the Philips Hue light. To create social presence, activity and emotional states will be detected through sensors and will be transformed into ambient lighting into the elder's home and vice versa without overt communication from participants. Findings are expected to provide a deeper insight on the notion of subtle awareness in relation to social connectivity between the elderly and their caregivers

The effects of a bioresponse system on the joint attention behaviour of adults with visual and severe or profound intellectual disabilities and their affective mutuality with their caregivers

\u3cp\u3eBackground: The subtle communicative behaviour of individuals with visual and severe/profound intellectual disabilities hinders the success of their interaction with professional caregivers. The bioresponse system, a tool to raise caregivers' awareness of the client's communicative behaviour, may improve the client's joint attention behaviour and the dyad's affective mutuality. Method: Four client–caregiver dyads participated in a randomized multiple baseline study with repeated baseline, intervention and follow-up observations. The bioresponse system's effect was evaluated with measures of joint attention and affective mutuality. Results: Two clients showed a significant difference on one or two joint attention subscales (including one significant decrease), and for all clients, at least one joint attention subscale revealed a positive trend. Positive trends in affective mutuality scores were observed in two dyads. Conclusions: The results stress the importance of further research to the effects of using the bioresponse system's in daily care for persons with severe/profound intellectual disabilities.\u3c/p\u3

Designing auditory display of heart rate variability in biofeedback context

This paper presents a set of real-time sonifications of heart rate variability in the context of biofeedback. The objective of the study is to explore new ways in providing biofeedback information rather than the typical graphic displays in medical products. Four different auditory displays were created by mapping heart rate variability to timing variations of the sound. In the experiment, ten subjects completed five tests of biofeedback training with four auditory displays and one graphic display. During all tests, the heart rate variability and respiration data were recorded for evaluation of the effectiveness of biofeedback training. Subjects were also asked to rate their subjective experience after each test. The results suggest that most subjects could achieve a similar training effect with auditory feedback compared to graphic feedback. Although the user experience of auditory feedback did not meet our expectations, some subjects were enthusiastic about the direct auditory feedback. We discuss these results and provide a description of what is learnt from our design explorations

Vibe-ing : designing a smart textile care tool for the treatment of osteoporosis

Vibe-ing is a care tool in the form of a garment, which invites the body to feel, move, and heal through vibration therapy. The merino wool garment contains knitted pockets, equipped with electronic circuit boards that enable the garment to sense touch and vibrate specific pressure points on the body. With this design we aim to inform a multi-disciplinary audience about the oppor- tunities of integrating textile and vibration for health- care applications. We show how new manufacturing can lead to new possibilities in garment design and the integration of electronic components. With an example of dynamic behavior we demonstrate how the vibration therapy of the garment can be tailored to individual treatment needs. This design serves as a start. We plan to further investigate the effects of vibration therapy combined with textile design and electronics for the treatment of osteoporosis