Assistive technologies for severe and profound hearing loss: beyond hearing aids and implants

Assistive technologies offer capabilities that were previously inaccessible to individuals with severe and profound hearing loss who have no or limited access to hearing aids and implants. This literature review aims to explore existing assistive technologies and identify what still needs to be done. It is found that there is a lack of focus on the overall objectives of assistive technologies. In addition, several other issues are identified i.e. only a very small number of assistive technologies developed within a research context have led to commercial devices, there is a predisposition to use the latest expensive technologies and a tendency to avoid designing products universally. Finally, the further development of plug-ins that translate the text content of a website to various sign languages is needed to make information on the internet more accessible

Realistic elbow flesh deformation based on anthropometrical data for ergonomics modeling

The human model for ergonomic simulation has improved in terms of its reliability and appearance and yet there seems to be less attention paid to create a realistic and accurate flesh deformation around the joint. This study, a part of ongoing research, proposes a combination of manual and automatic (3D body scanner) measurements to create a database for flesh deformation prediction i.e. flesh deformation area and cross section changes, around the elbow joint. The database consists of two race groups i.e., Caucasian and Asian (23 subjects, 11 males and 12 females), which were carefully chosen to represent a variety of height and body type. The prediction results for both flesh deformation area and cross section changes are discussed as well as their relevance for the next stage of the study

Penerapan Keseimbangan Lini Perakitan Melalui Pendekatan Studi Waktu Gerakan dan Perubahan Tata Letk Ruang Mount Assy (studi Kasus Di PT LG PHILIPS DISPLAYS INDONESIA

The competition in electronics industry has become harder recently. It is because not only conventional CPT (Cathode Picture Tube) but also flatron also fulfilled the electronics market. PT LG Philips Displays Indonesia had their own mission to face the competition in order to be the market leader. One of the missions is to optimize their resources to create qualified product through productivity enhancement. This enhancement could be achieved by striving after a full contribution toward value added-productive activities production process and to minimize non productive activities. The purpose of this research is balancing the assembly line using motion time study approach for mount assy process in order to minimize or vanish bottleneck and idle condition in each work station because of ineffective and un efficient manual material handling. The result of this research is the total production time of one holder mount before material handling improvement is 259,95 seconds and after the improvement is 252,28 seconds. Before the improvement, material handling spend 16,7 seconds, in details, before mount tilt process is 15,3 seconds and after mount tilt process is 1,4 seconds. Meanwhile, material handling after the improvement needs 9,03 seconds, in details, before mount tilt process 8,4 seconds and after mount tilt process 0,63 seconds. The bottleneck which is happened in welding station decreases from 9,45 seconds before material handling improvement to 1,78 seconds after material handling improvement. Idle or delay in final inspect station, decreases also from 7,95 seconds before improvement to 0,28 seconds after improvement. Keywords: balancing, assembly line, material handling

A Simulation Based Study On Visual Inspection Task Performance During Menstrual Cycle

ABSTRACT This research was conducted to study women performances in visual inspection task during menstrual cycle. The participants were ten female students with regular cycle (28 days). Factory noise (80 dBA) that recorded from its original location was added to make the simulation area became more likely the real situation. The intervals observed were on the day 2, day 14, and day 23 of their cycle. Signal Detection Theory was used to measure the accuracy of inspection taskThe results revealed that menstrual cycle and noise presence affecting the accuracy (represent with sensitivity) but there were no interaction between those two factors (menstrual status and factory noise). Keywords: Menstrual Cycle, Visual Inspection, Signal Detection Theor

SHION (Smart tHermoplastic InjectiON): An Interactive Digital Twin Supporting Real-Time Shopfloor Operations

Injection molding is widely used to produce plastic components with large lot size. However, guaranteeing consistency and quality of parts in injection molding is challenging. Failures occur due to variation during injection cycles. Thus, real-time detection of failures will have a high impact on quality and productivity. This article is focused on Smart tHermoplastic injectION (SHION), a cloud-based Digital Twin supported by AI-based control of process parameters. Process parameters and their interrelationship with quality failure were studied and used to generate models for real-time prediction of part quality. Two injection manufacturing lines in industry were chosen for data acquisition, implementation, and validation of the Digital Twin. While SHION successfully predicted faulty products in real time, adoption of traditional Cloud-centric Internet of Things approaches poses unforeseen practical challenges such as exposure to risk of losing data due to network issues and prohibitive cost of regularly transferring a large amount data to Cloud services

Supporting Domain Characterization in Visualization Design Studies With the Critical Decision Method

While domain characterization has become an integral part of visualization design studies, methodological prescriptions are rare. An underrepresented aspect in existing approaches is domain expertise. Knowledge elicitation methods from cognitive science might help but have not yet received much attention for domain characterization. We propose the Critical Decision Method (CDM) to the visualization domain to provide descriptive steps that open up a knowledge-based perspective on domain characterization. The CDM uses retrospective interviews to reveal expert judgment involved in a challenging situation. We apply it to study three domain problems, reflect on our practical experience, and discuss its relevance to domain characterization in visualization research. We found the CDM's realism and subjective nature to be well suited for eliciting cognitive aspects of high-level task performance. Our insights might guide other researchers in conducting domain characterization with a focus on domain knowledge and cognition. With our work, we hope to contribute to the portfolio of meaningful methods used to inform visualization design and to stimulate discussions regarding prescriptive steps for domain characterization

Participatory ergonomics in Indonesian tin mining

Thousands of small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) employees in Indonesian tin mining companies work in dangerous environments without sufficient safety and health protections. This study’s aim was to investigate the identified factors, such as difficulty in communication among stakeholders (owner, manager, and worker), and workers’ negative attitudes towards and lack of knowledge in the use of personal protective equipment that inhibit the implementation of Participatory Ergonomics in Indonesian tin mining companies. Eighteen participants from five SMEs, encompassing three different roles, i.e. worker, owner and manager, participated in the interview study. The study revealed that the dissemination of occupational safety through a kinship approach and specific safety training were preferred to resolve communication, cultural and knowledge problems. The provision of clear definitions of roles and tasks and the allocation of time and resources were suggested as ways to empower workers and supervisors

The use of virtual reality and physical tools in the development and validation of ease of entry and exit in passenger vehicles

Ease of entry and exit is important for creating a positive first impression of a car and to increase customer satisfaction. Several methods are used within vehicle development to optimise ease of entry and exit, including CAD reviews, benchmarking and buck trials. However, there is an industry trend towards digital methods to reduce the costs and time associated with developing physical prototypes. This paper reports on a study of entry strategy in three properties (buck, car, CAVE) in which inconsistencies were demonstrated by people entering a vehicle representation in the CAVE. In a second study industry practitioners rated the CAVE as worse than physical methods for identifying entry and exit issues, and having lower perceived validity and reliability. However, the resource issues associated with building bucks were recognised. Recommendations are made for developing the CAVE and for combinations of methods for use at different stages of a vehicle’s development

Managing obesity through mobile phone applications: a state-of-the-art review from a user-centred design perspective

Evidence has shown that the trend of increasing obesity rates has continued in the last decade. Mobile phone applications, benefiting from their ubiquity, have been increasingly used to address this issue. In order to increase the applications’ acceptance and success, a design and development process that focuses on users, such as User-Centred Design, is necessary. This paper reviews reported studies that concern the design and development of mobile phone applications to prevent obesity, and analyses them from a User-Centred Design perspective. Based on the review results, strengths and weaknesses of the existing studies were identified. Identified strengths included: evidence of the inclusion of multidisciplinary skills and perspectives; user involvement in studies; and the adoption of iterative design practices. Weaknesses included the lack of specificity in the selection of end-users and inconsistent evaluation protocols. The review was concluded by outlining issues and research areas that need to be addressed in the future, including: greater understanding of the effectiveness of sharing data between peers; privacy; and guidelines for designing for behavioural change through mobile phone applications

Understanding the complex needs of automotive training at final assembly lines

Automobile final assembly operators must be highly skilled to succeed in a low automation environment where multiple variants must be assembled in quick succession. This paper presents formal user studies conducted at OPEL and VOLVO Group to identify assembly training needs and a subset of requirements; and to explore potential features of a hypothetical game-based virtual training system. Stakeholder analysis, timeline analysis, link analysis, Hierarchical Task Analysis and thematic content analysis were used to analyse the results of interviews with various stakeholders (17 and 28 participants at OPEL and VOLVO, respectively). The results show that there is a strong case for the implementation of virtual training for assembly tasks. However, it was also revealed that stakeholders would prefer to use a virtual training to complement, rather than replace, training on pre-series vehicles